Silver Tiger, Iron Angel
by X-Amira-X
Summary: Akiri died 15 years ago fighting the Kyuubi.Now she's back, she's a jinchuuriki, and she's Team Kakashi's newest member.Konoha's Steel Fang and ultimate prankster is back and she's determined to get every single laugh out of it. OC
1. Chapter 1

Hey everybody, its Amira. This is my first story, so please give me any feedback you can. Plot ideas could help too if you have any, i have a general idea but any input is greatly appreciated. 2nd Chapter's in progress. Catch ya at the bottom! :)

Silver Tiger, Iron Angel

It was dark…and cold. She could feel the goose bumps spreading quickly up her arms. Her shoulder-length, silver streaked black hair floated across her face.

_Wait…. Floated? _

_I'm…under water? _

_Why? _

_How? _

_How am I breathing? _

_I'm not breathing??!!!_

_What in the world is going on?!_

She slowly opened her electric blue eyes to just a slit, carefully keeping her body completely limp. She was a ninja after all, alerting whatever might be out there that she was awake was definitely not a good idea.

At first she couldn't see anything but a dim, sickly green light, seemingly all around her.

_O.K., so that rules out most natural bodies of water, I have never heard of any glowing green lakes or ponds, and the water is completely still, so it's definitely not natural. There aren't any chakra signatures nearby, so I know I'm alone, but just to be safe…_

She opened her eyes slowly, cat-slitted pupils trying to adjust to the strange, dim light. Looking down, she saw a dark circle. The same dim shape was above her as she looked up. She slowly reached her hand forwards,

And hit glass.

She quickly used her fingers to follow the glass. It circled her completely.

_I'm…in a giant…TEST TUBE!!!!_

Her mind roared with indignation.

_NO ONE STICKS ME IN A TEST TUBE AND GETS AWAY WITH IT!!!!_

She thrashed in the water, banging her hands against the glass as hard as she could in the restricted space. She barely had room to even put her elbow straight out in front of her.

_RAGHHH! Ok, this isn't working. Think. The glass is either too thick and I'm not strong enough to break it, or I'm not getting enough momentum going when I hit it. Sooo… Chakra. Let's see if I have any left. _

She quickly relaxed and calmed herself, taking stock of her current condition.

_Right. No major injuries, a few scratches on my shoulders, no idea how those got there. Strength seems to be normal, so that rules out the lack of strength theory. Even if it was reinforced with steel, I'm strong enough to break through it easy. Grrrr…. at least I still have my clothes on, that would have just added to the wonderful humongous mountain of humiliation piling up here. Let's see……YES!!! TAKE THAT! Chakra levels full power!!_

She focused her chakra in her fist, reared her arm back as far as the tube would allow, and hit the glass.

The glass immediately exploded outward. The water, and she, washed onto the floor in a torrent. She lay, stomach up in a puddle of water, shards of glass, and her own blood as it slowly seeped out of the gashes left in her back and right hand by the sharp glass.

_Damn! Forgot about the washout. Ow, this is uncomfortable. Have to try to get up without severing any more major arteries; I think I already hit one in by back. Jeeze, I'm losing a lot of blood…._

_And she blacked out._

Akiri awoke suddenly from her dreams/memories and was instantly in a defensive stance on top of her bed. Someone or something was crawling under her bed. Something relatively large … and tired from the way it was breathing, she could have heard it from the next room over. She slowly sat back down on top of her new, heavy black comforter. Whatever it was, it was a ninja, but its chakra signature indicated only a genin level use of chakra. It was probably safe to assume it was human. Now the only question was,

"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING UNDER MY BED, DWARF!!!!!", she yelled at the top of her lungs while quickly jumping to the end of her bed and flipping it up against the wall.

Underneath the bed was a panting and shaking Konohamaru, green scarf, red face and all. He looked like he was hiding from the devil from the way he was shaking.

"P-P-Please don't yell. I don't want to die if obaa-chan hears you!" he said in a quavering voice, as he moved to hide behind her curtain.

Akiri quickly caught him by his collar and held him up in front of her face.

"Hmmm……. What to do with you? I could turn you over to Tsunade-san, but that wouldn't be any fun." She puzzled over the matter for a second, and then answered her own question. "You know what? I'll make you a deal since I'm feeling nice. You tell me what you did to make Tsunade want to kill you, and I'll let you hide in my room. I'll even make breakfast if you let me in on the plan next time you try and prank that top-heavy blondie. How does that sound?"

"Hmm," Konohamaru considered, somehow managing to look like he actually had a choice if he wanted to live. "I'll agree to tell you what I did, but I can't agree to the second part. I have no idea who you are and if you get me caught next time, I'm in big doo-doo. How do you even know I played a prank on obaa-chan? Are you a ninja? Who are you exactly? And what are you doing in obaa-chan's house? Why would you want in on pranking her if she's letting you stay in her house? Why do you call her Tsunade-san? How…" Konohamaru seemed to have an endless stream of questions pouring out of his mouth so she decided it was long enough after the sixth and she stuck her other hand over his mouth, effectively cutting him off, temporarily at least. She had heard of the hyperactive boy from Tsunade (mostly complaints) and knew he was likely to go on forever if undeterred.

"Konohamaru, if I live in Tsunade-san's house and you are constantly pulling pranks on her, don't you think that she's going to come home at the end of the day spouting wild stories about "that stupid Naruto mini-me" stealing her sake or making a bowl of water fall on her head? I've heard about every single prank you played on her in the entire month I've been here! Frankly, I've been itching to stop just hearing about them and actually play one. Unfortunately I've been officially ordered to stay out of sight. Pranks aren't any fun if you do them where no one else can see them; pranks are best done in public, and as noisily as possible so I'd need some outside assistance." Kiri smiled evilly at the thought, then walked back over to her still vertical bed, slammed it back down to its normal position on the floor, and dropped the kid on the bed.

Konohamaru gaped at her, and then slowly smiled. "You sound like my kind of prankster."

"Good. My name's Gintora Akiri, nice to meet you. Please call me Kiri. Now if you would give me a second to change, I'll go down and see what's in the kitchen." she said looking down at her blue and black plaid pajama pants and oversized t-shirt that she suspected had been Tsunade's by the fact that the top half of it was stretched to the point where it was nearly see through.

Konohamaru nodded, actually looking patient for the first time in his life. He couldn't wait to see what this scary girl could come up with. His mind was still bubbling with questions, but he suspected that if he just let them spout out of his mouth like he normally did, she might change her mind and hand him over to Tsunade. He shivered. That would not end well for him.

Kiri pulled her clothes out of her drawer and went into the adjoining bathroom to change. It matched her room, small and an extremely boring beige color, but it had a sink, toilet, and shower, so she couldn't really complain. She shrugged off her baggy pajamas and started to pull on her usual outfit. It consisted of average black capris, a mesh sleeveless shirt covered over by a bright blue tube top with her clan symbol on it (a jagged black shape that slightly resembled a lightning bolt), and a pair of black sandals that were pretty much universal footwear for ninjas. On top of everything, she strung two chains to hang from either side of her waist to cross in the middle and meet in the back, and shrugged on her "headband" so that it lay over her right shoulder and ran under her right arm, like the strap on a messenger bag. It was made of a very thick, heavy black material and had metal plates in the front and back, Konoha's symbol carved into the upper part of the front plate. It also happened to weigh over a ton, which wasn't so average, but she wore it as easily as if it wasn't there. She quickly combed out her unusual hair and managed to get it to lay flat and not look like a complete haystack that it usually was in the morning. She knew her hair color was unusual, but that didn't make it any more acceptable to her to let it do whatever it wanted. Black hair with silver streaks or not, she was not going to put up with it!

She went back into her room and put her pajamas in her clothes hamper, then looked to Konohamaru. She was surprised to see him still sitting on her bed, exactly where she had left him. She had expected him to at least be bouncing off the walls from what she had heard. She looked at him again, and then laughed. His face had turned bright red and he appeared to be holding his breath as hard as he could. He looked like he was about to explode if he didn't ask her some of the questions that he was desperately trying to hold back. She laughed and announced, "Konohamaru, if you don't breathe soon you are likely to suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen. Don't worry about annoying me with questions; I won't turn you in, that would be killing my best chance of a little fun around here. You can ask me anything you want over breakfast. Come on, Tsunade-san won't be home until a lot later."

Konohamaru leaped off the bed and ran out her door into the hall towards the kitchen. Kiri smiled. Either he was as starving as she was, or he really wanted to know who the heck she was. She walked down the hall to the kitchen, chuckling to herself.

_Yes! The Prank Master of Konoha has finally returned. Beware everyone; she's come back with a vengeance! _Kiri grinned evilly, thinking up hundreds of plans in the space of time it took to walk between the guestroom and the kitchen. Most of them were crap, but some showed promise. The question was, was her accomplice good enough to keep up with her. He was a quick kid to be able to trick the Hokage so many times in just the space of a month, but that was grains of sand compared with the giant boulder she was thinking up at the moment.

She entered the kitchen and went to get herself some leftovers from last night's dinner. She and Tsunade had been too tired to cook, so they just made a couple portions of instant ramen. Okay, maybe more like ten packages of the stuff, but they had been hungry. Not that she had complained in the least, in her opinion, ramen was the best thing ever invented since the kunai. She poured some into two bowls and popped them in the microwave before turning back to the ball of kid sitting at the table and practically vibrating with excitement.

She walked over and sat down, mentally preparing herself for a tsunami of questions. She didn't have to wait long.

"Okay. Number 1, what are you doing in Tsunade obaa-chan's house. Number 2, are you a ninja? Number 3, what experience do you have with playing pranks on high-class ninjas? Number 4, why does your hair have silver streaks in it and why do your eyes have cat pupils? And number 5, what's for breakfast?" Konohamaru questions spewed out of his mouth so fast, she had a hard time distinguishing between where one question ended and the next began. She smirked, at least he had only had five questions, it was better than the never ending stream she had been bracing for.

"Arighty, lets see. I'm in Tsunade-san's house because I have been placed under house arrest. I am a former ninja of this village, but I died fifteen years ago fighting the Kyuubi and only came back to life about a year ago. The council still has to decide whether to let me rejoin the village's ninja force or just keep me under house arrest forever. The reason it's here is because, before I died, I was Konoha's official weapons master and one of the village's top jounin and the council was nervous about just letting me wander around the village. They thought that Tsunade-san would be the best one for the job of keeping me contained. I guess they might have been a little mad at me too, since I fell asleep during the council meeting. It's not my fault though; those old coots are as boring as a bag of potatoes! They wouldn't know a funny prank if it drew on their faces with a Sharpie while they were sleeping. Trust me, I tried to make them see the humor in it, but they seem to have been offended for some reason that I drew daisies all over their faces. They'll fade in a week anyway! Oh, right, second question. I think I answered that already. On to the third. Experience. Have you ever heard of the Fourth Hokage?"

Konohamaru looked at her like she had just suggested he didn't know what mayonnaise was.

"Yeah, I guess that's kind of obvious. So, did you hear what happened to him the night he was named Hokage?"

Konohamaru shook his head. Kiri grinned.

"It was the weirdest thing, I mean, somebody somehow managed to get the guy stoned drunk, then dressed him up like a geisha, makeup and all, and stuffed him up the nose of the Third on the Hokage monument. They found him the next morning and it took nearly five teams of ninjas to get him down. He never messed with the perpetrator's underwear drawer ever again though."

By the end of the completely innocent story, Kiri's grin looked like it belonged on a smug cat and Konohamaru was rolling around on the ground, laughing so much that it hurt.

"Of coarse, it was all covered up afterwards, no one wanted the village to hear about their fierce and powerful Hokage being made into a pretty geisha-booger. It was such a shame. Oh well, onward. The hair came with the head; Kami-sama threw it in for free. The eyes came later, but that's a classified matter. Last but definitely not least is only one of the greatest things in the world, RAMEN!!!!!"

"Ramen for breakfast?" Konohamaru looked at her funny. "Please tell me you aren't as obsessed with ramen as Naruto-kun."

"Who?' was Kiri's only reply as the microwave finally beeped and she rushed over to her delicious breakfast. She carefully lifted the two steaming bowls out of the microwave and carried them over to the table as fast as she could without spilling them, which was pretty fast since she was a ninja. She quickly set Konohamaru's bowl down in front of him with a pair of chopsticks and hastily mumbled "Itadakimasu" before she started shoveling the long noodles into her mouth.

Konohamaru just stared, holding his chopsticks halfway to his bowl.

_Yup, another Naruto-kun for sure. I wonder if she's really strong, or if she has any really cool jutsu she can show me like Naruto's sexy-no-jutsu. I am definitely going to be Hokage some day if she trains me! She said she was a jounin before she died, maybe she knows some awesome jutsu that was lost when the Kyuubi attacked!......Wait a second, something didn't compute with that last thought. What was it? She was a jounin? No, that's possible. Awesome forgotten technique? Still possible, lots of ninja families died out. Her teaching me the jutsu? Also possible, if I manage to stay on her good side. Hmmm.. What could it be? Wait a second, died…………SHE DIED!!!!! IS SHE A GHOST!! HAVE I DONE SOMETHING BAD THAT SHE'S COME BACK TO HAUNT ME!!!_

"Y-Y-YYYYY- YOU DIED!!!!" Konohamaru screamed, knocking his ramen bowl so it spilled all over him and jumping up from the table.

"Yes" Kiri said simply, staring at him as he stood there staring.

"BU-BU-BU BUT YOU'RE EATING!!! AND YOU CHANGED YOUR CLOTHES!!! AND YOU PICKED ME UP!! GHOSTS CAN'T DO THAT!! WHAT ARE YOU?? " Suddenly the dwarf appeared to have an epiphany. "ARE YOU TELLING THE TRUTH? I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!!! THERE IS NO WAY YOU COULD HAVE POSSIBLY DIED AND COME BACK TO LIFE SINCE YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT A GHOST!!

Konohamaru sat down with a huff, arms folded across his chest, his nose in the air.

_Great, _Kiri thought, grumbling _another non-believer. _"Konohamaru, I'm afraid I can't explain how I'm alive, Tsunade-san has already put that little bit of info into the classified folder. I really did die 15 years ago; my name is even on the memorial stone. I am alive, I am certainly not a ghost, and even if I were, would I waste my eternity of solitude living in a house with that big-chested, drunken, party pooper? The only time she's ever really entertaining is when she comes home covered in god knows what from one of your pranks!I would much rather spend eternity somewhere more interesting, thank you very much!"

Konohamaru peered at her suspiciously; ramen noodles sliding down the front of his shirt. He seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that he was covered in his breakfast. After a minute of intense scrutiny, he cautiously walked around the table to where she was sitting, carefully putting out his hand, pointer finger first, and poked her in the shoulder.

"Grr."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Konohamaru yelled as he jumped back quickly and fell on his butt.

Akiri broke out laughing. "Dwarf, you need to get better at keeping quiet. What would happen if someone sneaked up on you while you were following a target and you screamed like that? Now, why don't you do something about your breakfast, since it seems to have mysteriously gotten all over you?"

Konohamaru looked down at himself, realizing that he did indeed have ramen all over him.

"Oh man! Now what am I going to do? If I go home to get clothes, obaa-chan's bound to find me and turn me into a foot stool!" Konohamaru pondered the route to his apartment, but could find no way guaranteed to be Tsunade free.

"Why don't you borrow some of my stuff" Akiri supplied. "It shouldn't be too much trouble to roll up the sleeves and pant legs. Come on, I'll see what I can find." She said as she led him back down the hall.

Konohamaru ended up wearing a pair of her shorts, a belt, and a black sleeveless shirt which was the only one she had without her clan symbol on it. His scarf and luckily his underwear had survived the soaking of ramen broth.

Akiri stepped back to admire her handy worked and almost burst out laughing again. The shorts luckily went all the way down to below his knees, because the tank top was so long it almost looked like a dress on him. He managed to pull it off with some dignity, but he was half as tall as her 5' 8" so she expected it could have been worse. Konohamaru had told her about his recent escapade while she was searching through her drawers. Apparently Tsunade got very mad when you dyed her hair purple. It was too bad that the dye would wash out with water though; Tsunade would most likely wash it out before she came home, so Kiri wouldn't get to see it.

Konohamaru looked at himself in her full-size mirror, deciding if he could go out in public wearing a girl's clothes, especially if that girl was a certifiable giant. (at least from his perspective) He decided that he actually looked kind of good, and turned around to see Kiri with her hand over her mouth, trying to contain her laughter. He glared at her and stomped back to the kitchen, indignant.

Kiri followed him, still laughing inwardly. She found him sitting at the table, eating the rest of her ramen.

"DWARF!!! PUT DOWN THOSE CHOPSTICKS AND STEP AWAY FROM MY RAMEN BEFORE I AM FORCED TO USE FORCE!!!" She roared as she ran to rescue the remains of her breakfast.

Konohamaru rolled his eyes and backed away from the bowl. _ Definitely like Naruto. I wonder what he's going to think of her, if he ever gets back from that training. It's taking forever. He's supposed to be back in two days though. I wonder…_

"Hey, Kiri. What do you think about doing a test prank, just so I can see what you're made of?" It was Konohamaru's turn to smile evilly.

"What did you have in mind?" Kiri replied, shoveling down the last of her ramen as if it was going to run away from her.

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Hey! i'm back! so what cha think? Next stop, old friends, sharpies, and lots of fainting! See ya! :P


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey, its Amira! Sorry it took so long for chapter 2, i couldn't stop writing! Plus homework is more annoying than my little brother so that didn't help any. Reviews and story advice are, as always, more than welcome. (actually, i'm begging for it. PLEASE!!!!!!!) Prepare yourself to fall of your computer chair laughing, this one's a lot more interesting than the first. :p**

Normal

_Thoughts_

**Jutsu **

**/" Kurobi speaking "\  
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Kiri groaned

The council had finally decided what to do with her. It probably could have been worse, but it was definitely not the best possible outcome.

She would be allowed to rejoin Konoha as a ninja, but they were forcing her to start all over again and take the genin exam.

_Well, at least it's better than living the rest of my life as a civilian. Boring!_

She lay back on her bed, which was still unmade at four o'clock in the afternoon. Organization had never been her strong point. A myriad of random objects, various sharp metal weapons, and scraps of paper covered her floor (she couldn't remember what color the carpet was and hadn't seen it in a while) and her bed hadn't been made since the day she had first entered the room about a month ago. Konohamaru had paid his visit during one of those rare times when she had gotten so bored she had actually cleaned. It hadn't lasted long though and had been back to its normal messiness within an hour.

Konohamaru sat on the floor at the foot of her bed, scribbling mindlessly on a pad of paper while staring off in the distance. They had been bouncing prank ideas off each other since Konohamaru had brought it up the day before.

_Wait, yesterday. That means that today is yesterday's tomorrow and yesterday Tsunade said I had to take the genin exam TOMORROW WHICH IS TODAY!!!! AHHH!! I TOTALLY FORGOT!!GOTTA GET OUT OF MY PAJAMAS!_

Akiri shot up from her bed and dashed for her dresser, grabbed her clothes and zoomed into the bathroom shouting "KONOHAMARU, SORRY BUT I GOTTA GO!! TSUNADE'S MAKING ME RETAKE THE GENIN EXAM OR ELSE I CAN' TBE A NINJA AND ITS TODAY AND I GOTTA GO!!!

She changed in record time and zoomed out the door, still slipping on her "forehead protector" and brushing her teeth and combing her hair at the same time.

_Wow, _she's_ either really good at multitasking or she finally lost it. And I've only known the woman for a day! ,_ was all that Konohamaru could think as her black and purple panda bear pajamas fell on his head.

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Akiri dashed as fast as she could down the street towards the academy. Luckily the layout of the village hadn't changed nearly at all and she easily found the large building. Otherwise she would have been completely and hopelessly lost and doomed to never be a ninja again.

"MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT!!" Kiri ran through the crowded market street, looking like a blurry whirlwind with hair. People fell down in her wake if they didn't move fast enough and she jumped over a group of toddlers playing with chalk.

She blew through the doors of the academy, up the stairs, over one of the students at the drinking fountain, onto the wall, onto the ceiling, and straight to the last classroom on the left, trailing a cloud of smoke. She stopped at the door and tried to be as quiet as possible (which is quite quiet since she's a ninja ;) ). She slowly and quietly opened the door and peeked her head in.

It was a pretty average classroom as far as classrooms go, teacher's desk and blackboard in the front with tiered rows of desks facing the front. The teacher was standing in front of his large, heavy looking desk and droning on about something that Akiri completely ignored for the moment. The kids had started to notice her and were about turn more than their eyes towards her. She hastily put her finger to lips and a cheeky grin on her face. The kids nodded minutely and turned their faces back towards "listening to their teacher" as their eyes followed her. Luckily, the teacher was reading from what looked like an instruction book and hadn't noticed his student's inattention. Wait, he looked familiar, where had she seen that scar before? It ran all the way across his nose an onto either cheek bone. Then it popped into her head.

_Ha! It's Ruka-kun! Who would have thought he would become a teacher?_

Kiri slowly got the rest of the way into the room and slowly closed the door, with rather a lot of exaggerated caution and silence. She then, with lots of exaggerated tip-toeing walked up behind the desk and the teacher.

_Now the fun begins! _Kiri thought excitedly.

She then carefully composed herself….. And started mimicking the teacher's stance and exaggerated hand gestures that he was using to "embellish" his lecture that everyone was listening attentively to. (NOT!) The kids started giggling at her wonderful act as she held an imaginary booklet in front of her face and started miming whatever the heck he was saying (she wasn't actually paying any attention to that). When the kids' giggling turned into muffled laughter the teacher looked up at the class, then turned to see what was so funny behind him. Kiri had quickly ducked down behind the desk and out of view, but not before drawing him an absolutely be-u-ti-ful picture on the blackboard of him kissing what looked to be a large, polka-dotted, wild boar at lightning fast speed.

Iruka was completely baffled at how the drawing had gotten on the blackboard; he hadn't sensed any chakra signatures, so it wasn't any of his students. It had to be one of the jounin or ANBU, but did any of them actually have a sense of humor like that? If anyone told him that any of the ANBU had actually cracked a joke, much less drawn a cartoon of him kissing a pig, he would calmly and carefully have personally escorted such a person straight to the mental hospital to be evaluated. What on earth was happening?

What he had completely failed to notice while still being dumbfounded and staring at the very nice, detailed cartoon, was that a strange girl had snuck out from behind his desk, walked calmly up the wall of the classroom and was currently standing upside down above his head on the ceiling. His students had noticed though, and were waited with barely contained glee at what the weirdly dressed girl would do next.

Said "weirdly dressed" girl smiled at the eager faces, held up a peace sign, and promptly dropped from the ceiling to stand on Iruka's shoulders, carefully adhering herself there with chakra.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Iruka yelled as he tried to shake off the thing that had "attacked" him from above. Then he finally thought to look up at what it was and promptly fell backwards on his butt.

"Hey, Ruka-kun! What's up?" Akiri asked with a wicked smile on her face as she leapt off his shoulders and onto his desk. (Though she was careful not to mess with any of the papers, one of them might be her answer sheet for the written test after all.) Iruka chose that moment to turn white and inelegantly fall the rest of the way to the floor in a dead faint.

"Geeze Ruka-kun, I come back to say hi to you after being gone for fifteen years and all you can do is scream like a little girl and faint dead away! I guess some things never change." She reprimanded the body of the man who had been a boy she had spent four years in the Academy with. She had always known he was prone to over reaction, but this was kind of ridiculus. Why did all of her old friends seem to faint when they saw her? Tsunade had done almost the same thing when Akiri had first arrived in the village and glomped the unsuspecting sanin. Did she have a contagious disease or something? Or did everyone she had known before start taking lessons from those weird fainting goats in her absence?

_Oh well. When you came back to life after fifteen years, I guess it can only be expected and tolerated. Still, he didn't have to scream, that's just asking for a little makeover while he's out in la-la land._

Kiri grinned, it was a good thing she had brought her favorite Sharpie marker, just in case anyone happened to fall asleep during the test. Looks like she finally had a good (unwilling) test subject for her new jutsu.

She looked up at the class to find them all rolling on the floor and clutching their sides with laughter. She grinned. Konoha finally had some ninjas (or soon to be ninjas) that actually had a sense of humor. Everyone in her generation had been so serious and stiff, she had always thought that she was one of the very few that were born then that actually had a fun personality.

"Attention dwarfs", she announced to the class, still standing on the desk. Some of them frowned at the dwarfs comment, but most of them just looked at her, still trying to regain a normal breathing pattern. She continued when they were all paying attention.

_Wow, Iruka. I haven't even become a genin and I can get their attention better than you. What happened to all your pranks and creativity? If they went out the window during the last fifteen years, I suggest you jump out after them. Only old geezers and babies are meant to be completely boring._

"OK! Now that I have your attention, can someone catch their breath long enough to tell me if the exam is over or not? If I missed it I'm going to be majorly pissed. I don't want to have to go through the academy again."

"Wait"

One of the kids stood up. He looked like an Inuzuka kid, brown hair, khaki shorts, black t-shirt, complete with red triangle tattoos and a small, night black puppy on his desk next to him. The only strange thing was a pair of very green eyes that would be unusual for the dog-loving clan.

"You're taking the genin exam? But you look like you're, like, fourteen! Why would a fourteen year old be taking the genin exam? And why have none of us have ever seen you in the village before? If you were a transfer from another village we would have heard something about it, and if you weren't, then you should have been in the academy! Would you mind explaining?" He finished politely.

"WHAT! I AM NOT FOURTEEN! I WAS FIFTEEN BEFORE YOU WERE BORN AND STILL AM! Anyway, you don't have to be so polite, it's not like I'm going to bite your head off." She added huffily, a little annoyed at the fact that he thought she was fourteen.

She sighed. "Alright, I guess I owe everyone an explanation. But can that wait until after the exam? I still don't' know if I missed it!"

The boy quickly informed her that she hadn't and introduced himself as Inuzuka Kaitoru.

"Pleasure to meet you. My name is Gintora Akiri. Please call me Kiri. Now, who here has a sharpie and would like to help me give your nice sensei a pretty make over?" She and the students grinned in unison and the kids quickly filed down, sharpies in hand to draw on their unfortunate sensei.

`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`O`

By the time they were done, Iruka didn't have a single bit of bare skin that didn't have a heart, fake mole, butterfly, star, or the occasional boar, sharpied all over it. Even his toes peeking out of his standard issue ninja sandals had several inked toe rings and black sharpied tonails. Kiri and her smug accomplices stepped back to admire their handy work and one of the students pulled Iruka by the back of his shirt over to the wall to sit him against it.

"Good job guys! Nice touch with the toe rings and boars. I completely approve of the eyebrow piercings and mustache, too. Geeze, why did my generation get so short changed on such great, evil little minds? Now, how long should I make them stay?" She smiled. "I spent the last month developing a jutsu to keep Sharpie tattoos visible as long as I want to; I just haven't had a test subject. I think I could even manage to make those nice, manly tattoos to glow pink and purple for a while. What do you say?"

All of the kids joined her in smiling at their teacher's soon to become even more embarrassing predicament.

"Now, a week should be enough don't you think? It won't come off no matter what he does, and he won't be able to hide them under his clothes with them glowing hot pink and purple."

They all snickered evilly as Kiri quickly made several hand signs.

**Marker tattoo revenge!**

The kids all stared as their drawings flashed blue and then settled into a nice pattern, fading from pink to purple and back again, all the while emitting the same color light so that no one could ever possibly mistake them for something cool or manly.

A resounding "Cool" was the only group response as Kiri finished admiring her handy work and turned back to them.

"Okay, payback complete. Now I think I am going to have to wake the poor baka up or we're not going to get to take the genin exam. Why don't all you dwarfs run back to your seats while I alert him to his current situation? Make sure to remind him of this for at least a month after it wears off so we get proper satisfaction from this. He should remember that it's not proper to go to sleep while your students are waiting to take a test."

The class obediently filed back to their seats chatting excitedly among themselves. They officially loved Kiri. This girl rocked. Not only did she seem like an awesome ninja, she was truly a genius at pranks and had actually enlisted their help with one. They had all agreed to elect her the leader and evil genius of their class, despite the fact that they had now known her for a grand total of twenty minutes.

Kiri, oblivious to the election taking place, grabbed her friend (who used to be a lot lighter) by his ankle, jumped onto his desk, and hung him upside-down. He looked really funny, he was starting to both drool and snore and the students had a hard time containing their mirth. Kiri shook the chuunin up and down a few times to see if that would work. No success.

_Oh well. Shouting is more fun anyways._

"RUKA-KUN!!!! WAKE UP!! ALL OF US KIDDIES HAVE TO TAKE THE GENNIN EXAM AND YOU HAVE GLOWING PINK AND PURPLE TATTOOS ALL OVER YOU!!"

Kiri didn't know if it was the point about the genin exam or the tattoos, but Iruka sure woke up fast. His first action was to scream like a little girl again when he realized he was hanging upside-down. Then he proceeded to kick his ankle out of Kiri's grip (probably not the smartest thing) and landed straight on his head in front of his desk and students.

Kiri calmly dusted off her hands and slowly walked to the empty seat beside Kaitoru, who she had mentally marked as the class artist from his very artistic and creative version of her blackboard cartoon which he had plastered across Iruka's cheek. She liked the dwarf; he seemed to have a way with pranks and had obviously had some experience with a sharpie.

Iruka tried to regain his composure and what little dignity he had (which wasn't much) while Kiri was on her way to her seat and was now simply standing in front of his desk staring at his hands and toes. It seemed like he was caught between being bewildered and brain dead, but somehow he managed to speak calmly and seemed to be trying to take it in stride.

"Would one of you please loan me a mirror, I would like to see what you have done to my face."

Kiri grinned and one of the girls tossed her barely calm sensei a hand mirror from her bag. It was hard to determine exactly what emotion he was trying to hold in, but it was starting to look slightly painful to Kiri.

Iruka slowly looked down into the mirror. He froze for a moment, and then looked straight at Kiri with an accusing glance.

"What is it sensei?" Kiri said in her best 'I'm a little innocent teapot short and stout' voice. "You can't possibly give me all the blame. I didn't even draw a single thing! Although, I'm afraid I did contribute a large part to encouraging your students and I might have put a jutsu on the sharpie drawings. Poor Iruka-sensei," she sighed dramatically, "you're going to be stuck with pink and purple glowing, unconsealable sharpie doodles all over you for an entire week. I'm sure you can survive. After all, only a big strong man yells like a girl when their long lost friend drops in on them!" She ended her wonderful performance with a concerned look at Iruka's steadily inflating head. "Are you alright sensei? Your head looks like its getting swollen! Do you need to go see the nurse!?!"

Iruka apparently was on the brink of exploding when Tsunade walked into the classroom. (Well, probably more like stormed in and blew the door off in the process)

"UMINO IRUKA! WHAT'S THE HOLD UP! THE EXAMINERS HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR TEN MINUTE……..HAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! What happened to your face!!!! You look more ridicules than Kakashi in a duck costume!" She looked over at the students and spotted Akiri right away.

"Akiri, I hereby name you the official most hilarious person I have met. Nice job on his face, the boar looks great and the pink and purple are genius. "

"But Tsunade-sama, I am completely innocent!" Kiri protested with a horrified look on her face. "I had absolutely nothing to do with this and neither did any of these darling children! We were all studying diligently when Ruka-sensei left to go to the bathroom. When he came back, he was covered in those glowing things, the poor man! I wonder if he did them himself or if someone jumped him? We really are free of blame!"

Tsunade looked completely unconvinced and gave the trickster a knowing smile before turning back to Iruka.

"Iruka-san, you are to bring the students over to the room where the written exam will be taken immediately. After that is done, I have an urgent message that needs delivering to all of the active jounin and you are the only one standing in front of me with the afternoon off." Tsunade then turned her back and quickly left the room. (She was having a hard time not laughing anymore. The Hokage was supposed to be respected and serious. She had slipped a little when she came in, but she was determined not to explode into laughter before she was safely locked away in her office.)

Iruka paled when he heard Tsunade's order and slowly turned back to Kiri.

"Kiri, I don't know how you're here, but until this comes off, I refuse to treat you to ramen!"

"AAAAAAAWWWWWW! You're really mean Ruka-kun!" Kiri pouted and stuck her lower lip out, making puppy eyes like a five year old.

Iruka smiled and sighed. He could never stay mad at the girl. She liked ramen and pranks way too much. Naruto had reminded him of his old classmate and now she was reminding him of Naruto. Wow, that thought was really confusing. He decided to just stop comparing the two.

"Hey," he replied, "you're not the one with a mustache and a pink and purple picture of you kissing a boar on your face. Be glad I didn't say I wouldn't buy for a month."

_Ugggg! I forgot he actually knows how to buy out of my pranks! Oh well, this chance was too sweet to miss!_

"It was entirely your own fault Iruka, you should know better than to scream at me like a little girl and then take a nap in the middle of the floor when I have a sharpie in my pocket. Plus, your students are seriously talented when it comes to humor. They actually have a sense of humor unlike our class! I'm starting to actually like the little dwarfs!" Kiri leaned back in her chair and rested her feet on her table/desk thing, arms folded behind her head and chair resting on two legs. She was fully satisfied that things had been patched up between her and her friend. She would be able to get him to treat her within two days at max. She still hadn't told him what had happened to bring her suddenly back to life and Iruka would take that tidbit, hook, line, and sinker.

Iruka grumbled something about kids being too smart for their own good and then escorted them all out of the classroom and down the hall to another classroom. This one was identical to Iruka's, but was set up with the four exam proctors sitting at a table in front of the room in place of the desk. The one proctor that was identifiable definitely didn't look nice. He was bald on the top of his head and had long, white hair covering the sides and a long, neatly trimmed beard that went down to his belt. His small blue eyes were hidden under more wrinkles and age spots than Tsunade had empty sake bottles. He was obviously not and had probably never been an active ninja by his extreme lack of muscle mass. The second, third, and fourth proctors were obviously ANBU by their masks and had no distinguishing features besides spikey brown hair that they all shared. She knew none of them. The ANBU-as-proctors thing was new, but so far, it seemed not much else had changed since the last time she had taken the exam.

She followed the others as they filed into seats and stared at the paper that had been placed there before they arrived. The proctor with the beard stood up and started droning on about the rules of the exam; no cheating, answer as many questions as they could, two hour time limit, blah, blah, blah. Nothing here had changed since she had taken it, what was it, twenty one years ago? Geezes, either being a ninja hadn't changed much or the proctors were just lazy bums.

The proctor gave the word and the test started. Akiri blazed through the test and finished within half an hour. They had only changed a total of four questions on the entire test. Only the last different one had thrown her off and it was in the history of Konoha section. She had been so surprised when she came to it that she nearly fell off her chair.

What role did Gintora Akiri, the last weapon master of Konoha, play in the defeat of the Kyuubi fox?

She puzzled over it for a moment and decided to answer it to the best of her ability, grinning.

_I wonder what they are going to think of my answer._

She wrote a page and a half, minute by minute account of the events of the fight that lead up to her death and gave a detailed analysis of the multiple injuries that had caused it. She spent the whole essay question grinning evilly. Whoever graded this test was either going to have an aneurism, or accuse her of cheating if they didn't actually look at the name at the top of her paper. She pitied them, a little.

_But I am going to have to have a little talk with Iruka-kun or Tsunade-sama. WHO IN THE WORLD AUTHORIZED THEM TO MAKE MY LIFE INTO A HISTORY LESSON!! HISTORY IS OFFICALLY __THE__ MOST BORING SUBJECT IN THE WORLD, I WOULD RATHER HAVE MY LIFE TURNED INTO A CHILDREN'S PLAY ABOUT A CHICKEN FOR KAMI-SAMA'S SAKE!!!_

She quickly finished the rest of the test questions and sat back to relax. The proctors wouldn't even start collecting the test for another thirty minutes. She promptly turned her test over and fell asleep on top of it, her head resting on her arms.

The ugly old proctor for the exam was stunned when one of the students seemed to fall asleep only a quarter of the way into the time allotted for the test. He had looked over the test to make sure that all of the questions were quite hard for the future genin and had thought it would at least take an hour and a half for even the smartest of them to finish. He had stood at the front of the classroom since the test had begun; making sure no one was cheating and had not seen her even attempt to peek at her neighbors' papers. He marched straight up the stairs that split the tiered desks into two sections and came to stand right behind the girl. She had shoulder length straight black hair that seemed to have silver streaks running through it, and she was wearing a strange sash that had a large metal plate on the back and he suspected a matching one on the front. He was about to ask her what she thought she was doing, sleeping during the exam when she did something that took him way off guard.

With a fluid motion too quick for the geezer to see, she lifted her head, stood up, and stared directly into his eyes with ones that were electric blue. That wasn't the most shocking thing though. She had slit-like pupils that looked they belonged to a cat and she held a kunai to his throat. She had not intended to use the kunai, but she never liked a threat to stand behind her and her instincts clearly marked this man as someone who would hurt her.

He stared at her in amazement for a second before speaking in a sneering, and overall quite annoying voice.

"Miss, I am ordering you to hand over your kunai and give me your test, as is. You have been disrespectful in sleeping during the exam and it will not be tolerated. Your incomplete paper will be graded like all the others if it has any answers on it at all."

Kiri glared at the man with absolute fury. This man had the audacity to **order** her to give up her weapon and had tried to embarrass and shame her in front of everyone else in the room. Her blue eyes flashed and almost glowed as she continued staring into his eyes for a long three heart beats before she took one step back and held the kunai out to him, point first.

"Oh don't worry about **my** paper proctor-san. I assure you my test is fully completed and with a grade of at least one hundred percent. And that's if the person grading it doesn't see fit to give me quite a few extra points." She practically hissed the words through her teeth.

The proctor had the decency to hesitate before taking the kunai, but then snatched it away like he was taking a toy away from a toddler. She smoothly handed him her test from the desk behind her, still glaring at his face and handed that to him as well.

"Your impudence will be noted." The proctor growled and then started back down the stairs.

"I would apologize, truly I would." Akiri said in a voice that was closer to her normal tone, but still held a good amount of hostility. "But I'm afraid that I have a terrible problem with authority figures. Especially when they are arrogant bastards that don't deserve to teach the young ninja of any village, much less those of the village I call home."

Kiri sat down and replaced her head on her arms as if the incident had never happened. The proctor stared at her sleeping form for a few seconds before stalking back down to his place in the front of the room.

The other students had been watching the spectacle and were outraged at how the proctor had treated their class idol. They glared at his back as he walked away from them. Kaitoru met eyes with several of the other students and nodded. They would definitely tell someone about this. Probably Iruka-sensei, he and Kiri-san seemed to be friends of some sort. The other students nodded in agreement and turned back to their tests, still fuming.

When the old proctor announced that time was up, everyone had submitted a completed test, much to the spiteful man's annoyance. He grumbled something inaudible and undoubtedly unpleasant and led the students to the next part of the exam, weapons. The second proctor was an ANBU with a wolf mask and he walked with them to the practice grounds. The other two ANBU seemed to have disappeared at the end of the written exam.

Every one of the students gave the old proctor a wide berth and seemed very annoyed. Kiri noticed.

"Guys." she whispered to them so the proctor couldn't hear, "Relax. If you're so annoyed with one proctor that you can't throw straight, you're going to fail the next section of the exam."

"But—"one of the kids protested

"No buts. I won't have a single one of you fail because of me. Besides, how would you have time to be my prank crew if you have to repeat? I will be very disappointed if you all fail and I have to prank that bastard on my own." Kiri's Cheshire smile convinced them and they all nodded in agreement.

"No way are we going to let one grumpy old man keep us from becoming genin! Let's do this!" Kaitoru whispered determinedly as they reached their destination. It was a large field at the edge of the village that was set up with several kunai targets and five training posts off to the left side.

The old proctor left (which helped everyone's happiness) and left them with the wolf ANBU.

Said ANBU cleared his throat to get their attention before giving them the instructions for the weapons exam. They were to throw five kunai and five shuriken at the training target that was about one hundred feed across the field. At least three of each had to hit the red dot in the middle, which was about four inches in diameter, for them to pass. They all formed a line behind the throwing point and took out their weapons. Kiri went to the end; she was starting to get bored with this whole exam thing. The weapons test was a new addition, and a good idea, but for Kami-sama's sake, why were they making her take it? She was at least jounin level when she died and had spent a year living in the woods around the village to train herself back up to her former skill, and higher. This was kind of like asking a master chef to make oatmeal, and she was getting sick of oatmeal. The line got shorter and shorter as all of the students took their turn. It seemed that they were a pretty good group and not one of them failed to get at least three of the five sharp projectiles to hit the target, though no one had gotten a perfect five. Finally, after about twenty minutes of standing in line, Akiri was finally the last one up.

She walked up to the line where they were required to throw from.

"Name." the proctor asked in a complete monotone.

"Gintora Akiri"

The proctor looked up and stared at her for a minute.

"The Hokage has requested that from this point on you take a personalized examination. Please follow me. The rest of you," he gestured at the other students who were waiting in a crowd off to the side, "will proceed on to the next test with the other proctor."

He turned around and walked into the forest that surrounded the training ground on three sides. Akiri looked back at the other kids. They looked puzzled at this new development, but she dispelled their curiosity with a smile and a wave as she started off after the ANBU. They walked at a brisk pace away from the training area, through a dense stand of forest. It seemed to be taking a while to get to wherever they were going and Kiri started getting bored. No large animals lived this close to the village and the animals that did stayed well out of sight. The only signs of life around them were the occasional bird flying overhead or the sound of some animal quietly retreating away from them. The ANBU had not said another word after they left the training ground and had not looked back at her. Kiri sighed, ANBU hadn't changed at all. They were still a bunch of stiffs with absolutely no sense of humor.

_Just my luck. Can't he even tell me where we're going? Or start a decent conversation? Even if he randomly attacked me it would be better than this mind numbing silence. I don't' mind it when it's needed on a mission or something, but otherwise, silence is only good for those with overly sensitive ears. Since this instance falls into none of these categories, I have officially deemed it annoying. Time to end it, even if I have to have a conversation with myself._

"So, where are we going?" Kiri asked the silent figure in front of her.

"The Hokage has informed me that you have a rather… unorthodox skill. I am to test the parameters of this skill and decide whether or not it is an asset to this village and appropriate for use on missions that you would undertake as a genin. Since she has also informed me that this skill can cause damage to the surrounding area, you will be taking the test in one of the more remote training areas."

"And which one would that be?" Kiri remembered only a few actually remote training grounds in Konoha and had been to all of them at some point, but some she was more familiar with than others.

"Training area 44, also known as the Forest of Death." The ANBU was still speaking in that annoying monotone.

"What kinds of tests will I be taking?" Kiri tried to wheedle some more information out of the masked figure.

"You will find out when we arrive." The ANBU replied.

He refused to elaborate further and they continued again in silence. They traveled for about another mile before they reached the fence surrounding the intended training ground.

_Well, it hasn't changed much. The trees still look like they want to kill me and there are still giant animals that want to do the same, from what I can hear. Yup, it's definitely the Forest of Death. I wonder what would happen if I managed to get Tsunade to officially change the name to the Forest of Killer Daisies? _Kiri chuckled to herself at the last thought as she and her proctor leaped over the fence and started striding from tree to tree.

They hadn't gotten much bigger from the last time she had been there over twenty years ago, but they were still huge. They traveled towards the tower in the center of the forest for a little while until they reached a clearing. They both stopped at the edge and cautiously looked around. It was relatively large and was completely clear of all underbrush and trees. It looked relatively flat and the grass was short, like it had been purposely cut. There was a winding stream bordering it to the left and a pile of large boulders on the opposite side. Kiri quickly surveyed the area for all possible advantages she might gain from it, but found none. It seemed to have been carefully constructed to avoid giving advantages to either side.

Kiri grinned.

"Well, lets get going already. We don't want to miss dinner and the day isn't getting any shorter."

The ANBU nin nodded and they walked to the center of the clearing.

"Hey ANBU-san, do you think you could tell me what I'm supposed to call you?"

The ANBU remained silent. Kiri's eye started to twitch; she was getting annoyed at all this seriousness. Couldn't the guy at least have the manners to answer her questions or say that he couldn't? At least she knew it was a guy from his voice, the black cloak that was covering his uniform did little to hint at the wearer's gender.

"Okay, since you will not give me a name to call you by, I will give you one. Until the end of this test or you tell me otherwise, I will call you…. " She thought for a second, " Flower-chan!!!"

The ANBU sweat dropped under his mask. He hadn't been given a name for this "mission" and hadn't expected to need one. Akiri had turned out to be nothing like he had expected from what he had read on her from the history scrolls. They had all portrayed her as a serious, extremely skilled, slightly heroic figure that had bravely given her life in the battle against the fearsome Kyuubi. Instead, he found this fifteen year old, well, kid. She actually reminded him of a certain blond haired ninja who was currently out training with the toad sanin, Jiraya. She had an overactive sense of humor and actually tried to joke with an ANBU. She didn't even seem the least bit intimidated by him. Oh well, nothing is as it seems, and apparently history books did a very poor job of describing people's personalities. He turned to face the girl and began the "test".

"Tsunade-sama informed me that you have a new technique, but she did not specify what that technique is. She said that you yourself would better explain it and that I would better understand it if you showed it to me. If you would please do so." The ANBU instructed in his usual business monotone.

Akiri was not surprised to hear that Tsunade had neglected to mention what her power was. If someone had told her about it fifteen years ago, she would have promptly asked if the person had been drinking and shown him the way to the Konoha Hospital.

Akiri began her explanation.

"Alright. This is better understood if you hear the whole story. Why don't you sit down?"

'Flower-chan' did so with as much dignity as he could manage. Kiri sat down facing him and crossed her legs.

"I was killed in the final battle with the Kyuubi fifteen years ago as you well know. After that point, my story is only known to Tsunade-san. As she has ruled this information to be classified information, you must not discuss this with anyone besides Tsunade-san or myself. Approximately one year ago, I woke up in a giant test tube in one of Orochimaru's abandoned hideouts. I did not recall any events between my death and then. I broke out of the tube, but was unable to escape due to heavy blood loss when I severed an artery in my back on the broken glass. I passed out shortly after. I awoke in a different part of the hideout on a cot; my injuries bandaged and scabbed over. I do not know how long I was unconscious, but I would estimate it at about a week. A man by the name of Sasuke Uchiha cared for me for about a month while I recovered my strength. He had been sent to the hide out by Orochimaru to destroy all evidence of his previous experimentation with necromancy. Neither Orochimaru nor Sasuke himself expected to find any of the experiments to be either alive or successful. Sasuke cared for me for the duration of my stay and during that time, expressed a desire to return to Konoha before falling victim to becoming his master's next body. I believed and do still believe that this desire was sincere. We made a bargain. Sasuke would provide me with information regarding the whereabouts of Orochimaru's various bases and his plans regarding Konoha and I would lead a team to retrieve him when I returned to Konoha. After I had recovered to full strength, we destroyed all traces of both Orochimaru's experimentation and my new existence. Sasuke returned to Orochimaru to keep up appearances until I was able to return. Although I fully recovered my skills as a ninja were rusty and I set myself to retraining my body for when I returned to Konoha. I trained in the remote areas of Fire country where I was not likely to be discovered. About a week into my self-imposed training, I attempted to use my summoning. Unfortunately, I poured more chakra into it than I normally would or could have. I have trained by body to siphon off my extra chakra during times of peace and store it in my forehead as Tsunade-san has to some extent. For some reason, my body had been doing so ever since my death. How that happened, I do not know, but all of the chakra I had stored went into the summoning and I did not get the tiger that I had intended to summon. I instead managed to summon Kurobi. Kurobi is the twelve-tailed tiger demon. No I do not know how there came to be a twelve-tailed beast and neither has Kuro-san seen fit to enlighten me on the subject. Anywho, Kuro-san appeared, which was quite a surprise since he is a giant white tiger about twelve feet taller than the Kyuubi. He and I had a conversation and he decided that residing in the ethereal plane was a very boring existence and that he would have more fun if he was bound to me. He bound himself to me willingly. I became a Jinchuuriki, trained a lot and then came back to Konoha. My powers are the result of his binding. Every biju is associated with one element which it can control completely. Of the ones you know of, Shukaku's element is sand, obviously, and the Kyuubi's is fire. Kurobi-san's element is metal. As his container, I share his power over metal, among other things.

Kiri stood up and reached into her pockets. She took out two metal rings and snapped them onto her wrists. They fit snugly and were about two inches wide and sort of resembled shackles without the chains. They were made of a mixture of different metals, but were mainly steel and silver.

Flower-chan was still sitting on the ground, trying to absorb the information overload. He believed her, but it was having a lot of trouble wrapping his mind around it.

"Flower-chan, are you alright? You look like you've gone brain dead. And you're mask is falling off."

He hadn't noticed the mask and he snapped out of his daze and quickly pushed the mask back into place.

"Alright," he said in a completely flat voice, "So you can control metal. Would you mind demonstrating your usual fighting style so I can put it in your profile? It could also help if you could describe the other attributes that you have gained from, um, Kurobi-san. I have a basic knowledge of the other Jinchuuriki's abilities and they are widely different from one another, so it is likely yours are too."

Kiri sighed.

_Great, more explanations. This is getting to be really boring. I think I'd actually rather be taking the regular genin exam. Can't the guy even talk without the monotone? _

She stepped back from the seated form in front of her and dropped into a basic taijutsu stance.

"Flower-chan, I think it would be more helpful to you if you actually sparred with me. I feel really weird fighting invisible air ninjas and I tend to hurt myself if I try to."

Flower-chan nodded in agreement and stood, mimicking her stance.

"You move Flower-chan." Kiri invited.

The wolf ANBU swiftly closed the gap between them and aimed a punch at her stomach…which suddenly wasn't there. He spun around quickly, searching for where in the world she might have gone. He spotted on the edge of the clearing, sitting on the low hanging branch of a tree.

_She's fast! I wasn't even able to make contact! For her to have dodged that punch so easily, her speed must be at at least jounin level, if not higher!_

Flower-chan's stance betrayed none of his surprise as he remained in the middle of the field and waited. If she wanted to spar, she would have to come to him.

Kiri jumped down from the branch and landed with catlike grace on her hands and feet.

_He's holding back his speed. He would have gotten me or at least clipped me if he wasn't. _

She stood slowly, careful that none of her movement betrayed her plan. Then she flashed forward, barely a blur, and stopped behind the now thoroughly surprised Flower-chan. He barely had time to face her before he had to block a lightning fast axe kick to his head. He grunted with the effort and his arm was shaking.

_Damn, she's strong too. That coupled with her speed is going to be difficult to counter. If I block her too many more times I'm likely to end up with broken limbs. I'll have to dodge as much as I can._

Kiri quickly recovered and followed up with a kick to his ribs. He hurriedly stepped back to avoid it and countered with one of his own. She easily evaded it and flipped backwards to gain some distance.

"Your taijutsu is definitely up to par. Would you mind if we moved on to other skills, I did not anticipate having to spar and as such I am not prepared. Demonstration should suffice for everything else."

The stoic ANBU relaxed his stance as Kiri did the same. He returned to the middle of the field and sat down expectantly.

"You know what? You are too emotionless for your own good. I refuse to demonstrate further unless you agree to do two things. First, drop the monotone. I am not a little kid to be intimidated by it so you may as well. Second, you have to do something, anything, to make me laugh within two minutes or I am walking back to the Academy right now whether you like it or not! Life is too short to act like an emotionless, walking corpse. I should know. Now lighten up, or enjoy dealing with Tsunade-san when she finds out what happened." Kiri shifted her weight and crossed her arms. She had every intention of doing just as she said.

Flower-chan thought over what she had said and came to the grudging conclusion that she had him in a corner. He definitely didn't want to tell Tsunade-sama that he had not completed his assignment, he wasn't sure he would survive. She had a tendency to yell loud enough that his brain felt like it was going to turn to mush. Now all he had to do was do something funny…and drop the monotone. Boy, she couldn't have made it easy could she? The voice had become a definite habit and he couldn't remember the last time he actually made someone laugh while he was on duty.

"Okay," He said with obviously awkward happiness. It was quite obvious he wasn't used to doing so, but it sounded genuine.

"I agree. I do not wish to have my brain melted by Tsunade-sama's yelling if I don't complete this assignment. I need my brain for other things, such as figuring out how in the world I am supposed to make someone laugh while I'm wearing a mask, eating, sleeping, crosswords, that sort of thing, you know. "

He put his hand to his chin/mask in an attempt to look like he was thinking while his brain went into overload trying to think of something funny.

_Hmmmmmmmmmm. Idea, Idea, Idea, Idea, Idea, Idea, Idea, Idea. Need an idea. Ummmmmmmm. Ha! Got it! Hopefully it works!_

Kiri was still standing off to the side of the field, arms crossed and looking at him expectantly. He swiftly turned his back on her and started to fiddle with his mask.

Kiri was puzzled. The silent ANBU had had his back turned for around a minute and she still couldn't figure out what he was going to do. She relaxed and uncrossed her arms, smiling. It would definitely be interesting to see what the guy came up with.

Finally the stoic figure turned around and Kiri started. He had turned his wolf ANBU mask upside down and it was pretty apparent from the fact that he was facing about two feet to her left that he couldn't see anything whatsoever. She giggled. It was kind of funny.

He heard her giggle and turned the rest of the way to face her, slightly embarrassed that he had been looking in the wrong direction. Then he did something that did something that left Kiri absolutely speechless and dumbfounded.

He started dancing… and singing.

He put his hand on his hip and lifted the other to shoulder height and promptly began a loud and tuneful rendition of "I'm a little teapot".

Kiri stood with her mouth gaping as the mysterious ANBU ninja sang and did all of the motions of the silly dance. He ended with a flourish as he stood up from "pouring out" and waited for her reaction.

Kiri's brain was still frozen and her mouth hung wide open, staring at the man she had thought to be one of the only people she had ever met to not have any sort of personality whatsoever. Plus, the fact that he was _ANBU_didn't help at all with comprehension. All of the ANBU guys that she had met before had had no sense of humor whatsoever, and here was one doing the teapot dance!

_ANBU………Doing……..dancing…….singing……..I'M A LITTLE TEAPOT!!!!!_

Kiri burst out laughing and fell to the ground, sides heaving and laughing so hard that she could hardly breathe. She couldn't stop, it was just so …..Absurd!

Flower-chan watched her and chuckled to himself. This girl definitely did know how to cheer people up, including herself. She had been looking bored and frustrated ever since they had arrived in the Forest of Death and he suspected it was partially his fault. He knew he didn't have a basket load of emotions and when he actually felt them, he rarely showed them. It was really hard to communicate emotion from behind a mask anyways, so he had never bothered trying. He hadn't even realized that he had been so, well, emotionless until Akiri had made him laugh.

_Kami-sama, how long has it been since I actually laughed. I can't even remember. That's certainly depressing. And look at Akiri. She's died for Kami's sake and she's still laughing! Maybe I should try to laugh more often, she certainly seems happier than I am._

Kiri finally managed to contain herself (to an extent) and sat up, watching her proctor. He seemed to be deep in thought, from his relaxed stance. She didn't like ANBU masks. Sure they were unique and creative and mysterious and all that, but you could never have a real conversation with someone who didn't' have any facial expressions. You could never tell what they were thinking.

Kiri stood up and walked over to the masked figure. He didn't appear to notice and continued thinking. She grinned and waved a hand in front of his still upside down mask.

"Hellooooo, ANBU –san! Wake up! I thought you wanted to see me play with metal!"

He quickly snapped his thoughts back to reality and nodded. Kiri giggled.

"You know, it might help you watch better if your mask was right side up. It's probably pretty hard to watch something when you can't see it."

He had completely forgotten and quickly turned his mask around.

"Alrighty then! " Kiri said excitedly. She walked backwards a few steps to get some distance from the man. What happened next alarmed, scared, and amazed him.

She started glowing!

She had a faint, electric purple layer of chakra surrounding her body which was subtly changing before his eyes. Long claws grew where fingernails had once been. Her already slightly-more-pointy-than-normal canines lengthened into fangs that stretched down, nearly to her bottom jaw, as she gave a wide, toothy grin. Her blue eyes seemed to glow like the chakra around her and thin, black lines drew themselves around her eyes. The layer of chakra behind her stretched out a tendril and formed a purple, glowing tail behind her. What was most surprising though, was that she seemed to remain in complete control of herself. The ANBU had heard about what happened when Naruto, the Kyuubi-container, lost control of the demon. He would go down on all fours like a fox and would start to relinquish control of his body to the demon inside of him. Yet here was another Jinchuuriki who seemed completely unphased by the change and seemed to be in complete control. She didn't attack everything in sight; she didn't even seem to be angry! He thought that anger or extreme loss was what allowed a Jinchuuriki's demon to gain control over the container. Well, that idea was apparently wrong, from what he was seeing. Either that or she had some way of keeping her demon in check.

_She's…. she…How...What? _

"Please explain." He stated, careful to put some emotion in his voice, but tried and failed miserably to hide his complete confusion.

"Explain what?" Kiri asked like glowing purple and having claws and a tail was completely normal.

"You are obviously using your demon's chakra, yet you are clearly in full control. The Jinchuuriki of the nine tailed fox, Uzumaki Naruto, has a very hard time maintaining control over the Kyuubi even when he's using only one tail of its power. If he uses any more than that, he loses almost all control over his body and the Kyuubi takes over his actions. Yet here you are, using the Juunibi's power, completely controlled like it's an everyday occurrence. How?"

Kiri thought over what he had said about the Kyuubi container.

_The Kyuubi takes control of his body forcibly? Kuro and I are going to have to talk to the stupid fox. Even an unwillingly bound demon shouldn't take over like that. I wonder what's up with her?_

_**/"Kyuubi's making trouble again?"\ **__Kuro said silently in her head. __**/"Geeze, something must have royally pissed her off for her to do that to a kid. That doesn't sound like her. Either the kid is seriously evil, or something happened that we have yet to find out about. It would be a good idea to talk to her. Ask Mr. Serious over there if he knows about where the kid is. We need to talk to Kyuubi before something serious happens. Oh yeah, and I totally approve of Iruka's makeover. You need to get mad at people more often. The resulting pranks are hilarious. Maybe that baka proctor for the written exam…"\**_

_I agree one hundred percent, but we'll leave plans for later around less serious people. Maybe I can even recruit those dwarfs; they did a pretty good job on Iruka. Okay, back to reality._

"Alright, here's the short version. All Jinchuuriki have the ability to merge with their demon. As they merge further with their demon, they are able to access more of its strength. It also merges their personalities. The percentage of the way that a Jinchuuriki can merge with their demon is usually measured in how many of its "tails" they can use. If they go beyond the limit of their control, their consciousness starts to merge with that of their demon. If they go too far beyond the point where their and their demon's personalities start to merge, it may be impossible to separate them again. It seems, though, that Uzumaki Naruto has either angered his demon greatly, or something horrific happened to the Kyuubi that she feels that the boy is responsible. There is no other explanation that I can think of that a demon would hurt their container and forcibly take control of them. Despite the general opinion, demons are, for the most part, fair and peaceful creatures. They do not attack villages or slaughter hundreds without a superbly good reason. Both Kuro and I have puzzled over the Kyuubi's actions, but we have concluded that we cannot understand them without talking to the demon herself. We would also be most grateful if you could tell us where to find him. If strong emotions allow the Kyuubi to take control, it is possible that he is a great danger to the village depending on his disposition."

Her proctor thought over her explanation. It seemed that her demon, Kuro, was most willing to discuss information with her and so far as she had told him, was neither a monster nor in any way benevolent towards the village or his container. This new information would be very useful in the future and if she could teach the blond hyperactive ninja to control the Kyuubi, it would be a great sigh of relief for the village.

"Uzumaki Naruto has been out of the village, training with Tsunade-sama's fellow Sanin, Jiraya, for two years. Coincidentally he is due to return tomorrow with his mentor. I will discuss with the Hokage what may be done concerning you helping him with the Kyuubi. As for the boy, he is a lot like you. His nickname in the village is Konoha's most unpredictable ninja. During the Academy, he was the most troublesome prankster since you, um, died, though he didn't go as far as hanging the Third upside down from the mountainside. He has struggled with growing up alone, since most of the villagers hate him because they think he is the demon incarnate. However, he seems to have overcome his loneliness and has found friends and become a great ninja. He never gives up, his dream is to be the Hokage and he loves ramen. Basic summary of his personality would be determined, hyperactive, and basically a goofball. He seems to have talent, despite this and his completely un-ninja like taste for orange clothing. At least this is what I have heard from ninjas who have worked with him or known him as I have never met him myself."

Kiri immediately took a liking to the boy from the description. He seemed like he was a nice kid and was definitely like her in quite a few ways. Well, at least as far as the pranks, ramen, and "un-ninja" like taste for florescent colored clothing, though hers was blue.

"Hey ANBU-san, would it be possible for me to meet the kid? He seems okay and I'm curious to see how he survived with a rampaging angry demon inside him up until now. How old is he?"

"Fifteen." the wolf man said with conviction. "He was born the day that the Fourth gave up his life to bind the fox inside of him."

"Wait, this guy is my age?!?"

"Yes, is there something wrong?"

"No, I'm just surprised." Kiri answered guardedly. Inside her mind was reeling with curiosity. She _**HAD**_ to meet this Naruto now. Could they be friends? Could she help him with the Kyuubi? Endless streams of questions rolled through her head.

She quickly suppressed them and gestured to the wolf ANBU.

"So, are you going to watch me, or are we going to stand around all day?" Kiri said, breaking the thoughtful silence and returning the subject to the task at hand.

The ANBU nodded and stepped back to observe. Kiri remained in the middle of the field, trying to figure out what she could do that wouldn't look like she was just jumping around with a bunch of sharp metal objects. Since he wasn't willing to spar, she guessed she would have to leave the close range weapons for a later time, demonstrating those without an opponent who knew what they were doing was dangerous for the other person, plus he wouldn't be able to accurately judge her skills unless he was very skilled with all the weapons she used. She highly doubted that he was, she used a wide range of weapons, from battle-axes to katanas, to zanbatou.

_Long range it is then. Hey look, there's a tree over there that has utterly destroy me written all over it. Target found._

Kiri walked halfway across the clearing to a large tree near the stream, unclipping one of her metal bracelets as she went.

"Well, let's do long range attacks. Unless you're skilled in katana, zanbatou, battle-axes, naginata, and staffs, it wouldn't work to have you asses me on close range skills. I tend to start out with one weapon and move from one to another at fast paces, so it would most likely be best if I get assessed by a weapons master on that aspect." She said and tossed the heavy ring in the air. It was a lot heavier than it looked, since it had nearly 200 pounds of various metals compressed into it.

It flew about 100 feet into the air, and then broke apart into a cloud of thousands of kunai-sized pieces of sharp, jagged shrapnel. Kiri raised her hands to shoulder height, fingers spread. The shrapnel rose and then swarmed like a boatload of angry bees and sped straight at the silent, defenseless tree as Kiri swept her hands down, directing them. The tree didn't stand the chance of a bag of chips in Choji's hand as the shrapnel crashed into it and swarmed around it, shredding it and sending sawdust and splinters flying everywhere. When the dust finally cleared, there was nothing left of the tree but a stump, completely flat on top with Kiri's name clearly carved into it, and surrounded by various chunks of wood, sawdust, and leaves.

The ANBU walked over to examine the remains and was deeply impressed by the utter destruction of the tall plant. That is, until he saw the leaves lying around the trunk. Each one had a perfect little death kanji carved into it. At that point, he decided that he definitely did not want this girl to get angry at him. He had glimpsed Iruka's…predicament through the door to the testing classroom, though the chuunin was clearly trying to stay out of sight. That, combined with this solidified his position even more. She was clearly extremely precise with her control of her element. He smiled. Anyone who went up against her seriously would definitely remember it for the rest of their lives, if they managed to escape with it intact.

Kiri had remained standing where she had been, watching him inspect the pile of woodchips with her arms crossed. He was being boring and quiet again.

_Okay, let's mix it up. Just destroying defenseless trees is way too easy and absolutely no fun at all. I wonder what he would do if I…. Yup, definitely have to see his reaction to this little present._

She quietly called the jagged pieces of shrapnel back to her and formed a ball of the metal in between her outstretched hands. The ANBU guy was still staring down at the ground and didn't notice anything amiss, his back turned to her. Too bad for him. Kiri pushed the hovering ball into the air towards the unsuspecting dark figure and it sped at the man's back and spread out, growing tendrils that reached out towards him. Kiri's Cheshire grin once again graced her face.

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**Yay Its finally done! :D**

**thanks for reading**

**and a super-ginormous thanks to **xx Kitty-girl xx**, You made my day/week/possibly month (my first review ever!)**

**Kudos and cookies to all.**

**Next time: More sharpie, teammates, lots of falling off of stools, and a hello kitty spider ring.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Yay, third chapter down! I had this one part way done already so it got done a lot faster than I thought. As always, reviews are welcomed, needed, and appreciated along with story ideas. **

**Thanks to Samar Star for the review! You officially rock!**

regular stuff

_thoughts_

**And now on with the show!**

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Kiri sat up in her bed, stretching her arms over her head, and yawned before drooping and flopping back down onto her bed. It was way to earl for any normal human being to be awake. Why had Tsunade made her get up this early?

_Oh, yeah. Right. Meeting my team today. But why did it have to be at such a god forsaken hour in the morning? I swear she's out to get me for encouraging Konohamaru. Hehe, that was funny. He put a can of laughing gas in her sake drawer. Apparently it was really concentrated because she was still laughing by the time I got home last night._

Kiri grinned at the thought of yesterday's events. After destroying that tree, she had lobbed a ball of metal at her ANBU proctor. It had molded around him and completely incased him from the neck down. He hadn't been very amused at first when she made him walk around the clearing in the metal suit, manipulating the metal cocoon around him to control his actions, but he had eventually lightened up after she made him do a few cartwheels and do the funky chicken and the teapot dance. He was even laughing by the end of it. The tetsu-mayu no jutsu (iron cocoon) was a very useful one in both battle and in just having fun.

After that she and the proctor had a short conversation (though it was mostly one sided) and she had finally wheedled a name out of him. He had given her permission to call him by one of his mission names, Gurei. After that they had returned to the Academy to find Kiri's dwarf friends waiting for her, all sporting leaf headbands. They had all passed and were eager for her to tell them about herself. She gave them a short summary/abridged version. After that they had wanted her to stay and help them with their plan to get revenge on the crotchy old proctor from the first exam, but Iruka had arrived then, (still sporting his pretty tattoos) and hurriedly dispersed the group in hopes of preventing said revenge. Kiri had just smiled and waved as Kaitoru and the others all started home. She knew the dispersal was not going to save the old coot. One way or another, revenge was imminent.

She and Iruka and Gurei then took a trip to the Hokage tower and had a chat with Tsunade. Kiri had been given her headband, though what she was supposed to do with it she didn't know, since she already had one. After that Tsunade had simply told her to meet her new team at the dango shop the next morning at 6:00 in the morning. After that, Kiri had left while Iruka and Gurei had given their reports.

Kiri had, in the meantime, found each and every one of the new genin and spent a few hours with them, getting to know them and having fun. After that she had returned to Tsunade's house, at which point it was almost midnight, and collapsed into bed in her favorite set of pajama pants. They were black flannel, with little orange tiger cubs all over them. :)

She finally got up, frowning at the weak sunlight coming in her window. Morning sucked. She had never liked or had been a morning person. Morning people were way too happy, way too early in the morning. A reasonable hour to wake up and be happy was between ten and three in the afternoon. No earlier. She slowly climbed out of bed and got changed, slumping with her eyes half lidded. She walked down the hall and nearly fell down the stairs to the kitchen, stumbling towards the refrigerator where Tsunade always left her breakfast left-overs. She opened the door to the fridge and stuck her head in.

_WOW THAT'S COLD! OKAY, I AM DEFINITELY AWAKE NOW! HAVE TO FIND FOOD BEFORE HEAD FREEZES OFF!_

She quickly grabbed a square container of left over onigiri from the night before and walked over to the table, eating it as she went. She quickly polished off the leftovers and downed a cup of tea before going back up to her room to take a shower.

Twenty minutes later she walked out the front door in her usual outfit, plus a couple thick chains draped over her shoulder and around her torso. They were normally part of her wardrobe, but she had been slacking lately. They were her extra stores of metal and doubled as training weights since each of the three weighed well over four hundred pounds. She groaned as she readjusted to the weight, she hadn't worn them since she arrived in Konoha since she hadn't been anticipating any fights. The chains provided the metal for her staff, zanbatous, battle axes, and katana since her bracelets didn't contain enough metal to accommodate her double wielding form of each weapon. Today, though, she would most likely have to take the test that jounin gave their new teams and she wanted to be prepared.

She walked swiftly down the street, unnoticed since no one else was insane enough to be up that early. She enjoyed the quiet and the last of the fog slowly circling around her feet. The dango shop was only a few blocks away, so she took her time getting there, enjoying the quiet for once. Usually she enjoyed making a ruckus, but occasionally it was nice to relax, though too much relaxing got boring. Hanging around Tsunade's house for a month was definitely one of the instances when it got boring.

She finally got to the small dango shop and ducked behind the counter to inspect the kitchen. The owner was a friend of Tsunade's and often let Kiri make dango for his customers when she got so bored she had to do something. He wouldn't mind if she made some now for her new team, plus Kiri wanted to make at least a somewhat good impression since she would have to work with these people. She had gotten their profiles from Tsunade before she went to bed last night and had reviewed them as thoroughly as she could before falling asleep. Apparently, Tsunade had assigned her Sasuke's old spot on team seven with Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Hatake Kakashi. She had been surprised when she discovered one of her former classmates would be her jounin sensei and even more surprised to find that one of her teammates was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. She had mulled it over, but decided against openly confronting the boy about his resident until she at least got a first impression of him.

She finished the fourth serving of dango and headed back to the front of the stall with the food. She was just in time to see a bleary-eyed, pink haired kunoichi walking towards the stall.

_That must be Sakura, Tsunade's apprentice. Seems like I'm not the only one who isn't a morning person. _Kiri thought as Sakura dragged herself the rest of the way to the counter and flopped onto the stool, completely oblivious to the presence of the person standing right in front of her, folding her arms on the counter and promptly falling asleep on them.

_Wow. Someone either had a really late night, or she's seriously not a morning person. I don't think even I'm that bad, she's starting to drool on the counter._

Akiri studied her face intently, trying to guess at least some part of her personality, besides the fact that she isn't a morning person. She gave up, and taking a nice black sharpie marker out of her pocket, drew a giant curly mustache on her new teammate's upper lip and a goatee on her chin. Kiri smirked quietly, quite pleased with her handiwork, and went back to eating the rest of her dango. A blond, messy haired Naruto arrived twenty minutes later, half an hour late, in the same sleepy condition as the pink haired kunoichi and sat down next to his sleeping teammate, promptly smacking his head down on the table in front of him, starting to snore.

Kiri sighed, none of her teammates seem to be morning people, a shame for them, she was infamous with her sharpie skills. She pulled out her sharpie and started to apply some "eyeliner" to Naruto's eyelids, followed by vampire fangs and big, intricate, black butterflies on his cheeks and forehead. She had finished her dango ten minutes after Sakura had arrived (she was still sleeping… and drooling) and had been trying and failing to amuse herself with thinking of what Kakashi would do when he saw her. Unfortunately, since she hadn't seen him in, what, 15 years, she had no idea what had happened to him. He had never been the fainting type when she knew him, but then again, neither had Iruka or Tsunade. She was lost in thought, drawing a ladybug on each of Naruto's eyelids when the stoic, grey haired copy ninja arrived.

He smoothly walked up to the booth, reading some weird orange book that Kiri didn't know and sat down without looking up. Kiri cleared her throught, trying to get his attention.

_Wow, he didn't change that much at all. Maybe he's a lot taller, but he still has that silly, gravity-defying hair and that mask._

Kakashi paid no attention to the noise and remained still as a rock, immersed in his book, as a pale blush started over his cheeks. Kiri got bored of the ignoring and read the title of the book he was so interested in. Icha Icha Paradise. She could feel her face turning red and steam starting to come out of her ears as she reached her boiling point and burst.

"HATAKI KAKASHI!!! I COME BACK FROM THE DEAD AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS AND I FIND YOU SITTING IN FRONT OF ME READING _**PORN**__**!!!!! **_THAT IS IT, NO MORE IDLE THREATS, I'M GOING TO CASTRATE YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!"

She grabbed the book from the stunned man's hand, raised it above her head, and brought it crashing down on his head with as much strength as she could (which was quite a lot) before ripping it in half, storming back into the kitchen, and throwing it in the teapot full of water. When she stalked back out to observe the result, Kakashi's stool was flattened to the ground, Kakashi himself was lying next to it, flat on his back, almost out cold and certainly dizzy, staring up at her. Naruto and Sakura were looking dumbfounded and very much awake while staring at her as if she had just told them that Jiraya was gay.

She shrugged and said "Hello, I'm your new teammate, nice to meet you."

They kept staring at her for a few seconds, and then Naruto exploded with laughter and fell off his stool, rolling on the ground and clutching his sides. Sakura just kept staring back and forth between the her laughing teammate and flattened sensei. Akira chuckled.

"Alright, I guess I should see if the infamous Copy Ninja is still alive. We can't have the village's reputation sullied if the other villages hear that Sharingan no Kakashi was killed by a 15 year old genin by a book to the head." She walked out of the stall and over to the still stunned form of Kakashi. She looked down at him and nudged him with her foot, causing Naruto to laugh even harder till it sounded like he was barely able to breathe.

"Come on spikey, get up or I'll castrate you in front of your students. We wouldn't want that would we?" Kiri said as she pulled out a kunai. Kakashi instantly jumped to his feet as fast as he could and took the seat that Naruto had vacated. Naruto was still trying to recover from his amusement. Then he actually looked at her, and fell back off it onto his butt. "Ki, Ki, Ki , Ki ……Kiri?" he stammered, both shock and complete incomprehension making themselves known on his mask covered face.

"Yes, yes, it's me" she said. "I might explain when it's my turn for introductions. "Now," she said speaking to all of them (Naruto had finally gotten his breath back and was sitting on Kakashi's, well, now it was more like a seat cushion, since there were only three stools) "I know your names and what I've read from you're files, but they don't tell me anything about your personalities so why don't we do the classic game of genin introductions. Name, likes, dislikes, goals, and favorite food. Who wants to start?"

It looked like everyone was finally coming back to reality and then, once again, came another whoop of laughter. Naruto exclaimed between gasping breaths and suppressed laughter, "Sa , Sa, Sakura…..Why, hahaha, do you…..have a mustache and _snicker, snicker, snicker_, goatee?" He managed to get out before once again giving in to his loud, uncontrollable laughing.

"WHAT?" Sakura exclaimed, then stared at Naruto. "Why are you wearing eyeliner? And have butterflies all over your face?" Naruto immediately stopped laughing and put his hands to his face.

"NANI??!!"

Now it was Akiri's turn to fall to the ground laughing and clutching her sides. It took a few minutes of all three of them staring at her until she could get herself under control.

"Naruto, that's not all, you also have some beautiful lady bugs on your eyelids." she choked out. "You should see your faces! The infamous Prank Master has returned and already claimed it's, well I guess it would be third and fourth victims! " She declared and collapsed again into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

After a few seconds, Kakashi studied the faces of his students and, after very careful consideration of the designs, started to chuckle along. His laugh grew until it was nearly as loud as hers and he too fell off his stool in favor of the ground. (wow, they seem to like being down there today) Naruto joined them after another look at Sakura's face and soon they were all rolling around on the ground, laughing like morons, while Sakura just stood there staring at them with a weird expression on her face (which only made them laugh harder). Good thing it was only six o'clock in the morning and no one was around or it would have been really embarrassing. They finally got themselves back under control and took their places on the stools, and in Akiri's instance, behind the counter and tried to look serious. Kakashi recovered, more than slightly embarrassed.

"OK, now that that's over, we'll do introductions, and Kiri, is that the sharpie that I think it is?"

"Yup"

"Uh-oh"

"What's uh-oh, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura said worriedly.

" Back when I was in the Academy," Kakashi said, "Kiri was one of the best pranksters in the school. She even got officially named the Prank Master. She always had some way of catching people when they were asleep. Students, teachers, on-duty ANBU members, even the Hokage wasn't spared. She could draw on even the lightest sleeper and not wake him up, and that's not the worst of it. Somehow, the designs always managed to stay completely visible for over a month. She even got me with it and I had to suffer through having eyeliner, kitty cats, and smooch marks all over my face for six weeks, including during the genin exams! No matter what I did it wouldn't come off!"

"Okay," Naruto said, "First question, You were in the Academy at the same time?!?!?! Second question, AM I REALLY GOING TO HAVE BUTTERFLIES, LADYBUGS, AND EYELINER ON MY FACE FOR A MONTH!!!!!"

" Yes to the first and no to the second." Akiri said with a completely straight face, "I did go to the Academy with Kakashi, and the Sharpie won't stay on your face for a month. I perfected the ink while I was training last year. It'll last however long I want it to, and it can re-appear any time I want it to." She finished the last sentence with an evil grin.

"NOOOOO!!!!" Both Sakura and Naruto wailed pitifully.

"Don't worry, I'll make it disappear now and deactivate the jutsu so it won't appear like that again. But…." she said with an evil smile, "if you ever drool on my dango shop again, I'd stay awake twenty four seven if I were you."

Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi all looked properly warned and she continued.

"Sooooo, who's going first? I call last."

Naruto volunteered. " My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I like ramen, training, and uhh ramen. I don't like Orochimaru, people who believe in destiny, and broken microwaves that make it so I can't make instant ramen. My dream is to become Hokage and drag a certain teammate of my back to the village, and my favorite food is…. ramen."

Akiri listened intently and stared at him while he was speaking, then suddenly asked, when he was done, "Are you the Jinchuuriki of he Kyuubi no Kitsune?"

He replied, a little confused, "Yeah, why?"

"You are not at all what I would have expected." she replied cryptically, and then continued. "OK. Sakura, do you want to go next?'

"Sure," the pink haired kunoichi replied, "My name is Haruno Sakura, I like training, shopping, and being a medic nin. I don't like perverts or ramen, and my dream is to bring one of my misguided teammates home, even if I have to drag him by his hair. Oh, and I guess my favorite food is sushi." She finished.

"Great," Kiri said, " I totally agree with you on the perverts. They need a good smacking around every once and a while to keep them in line. Although, I've given up on Jiraya, that man is completely incurable. Oohh, look who's turn it is. And Kakashi, if you just give those crap answers you gave when we became genin, I'm going to fill in the blanks with what **I** think the answers are. You've been warned."

Kakashi gulped. "Um. My name is Hatake Kakashi, I like reading. I don't like magically, soap-proof sharpies, my dream right now is to ask what the heck you were doing for fifteen years while you were dead, and I like a lot of foods."

Kakashi unfortunately realized his mistake too late and the vague answer slipped out of his mouth. Kiri flashed him her evil grin and the revealing began.

"Kakashi's name is Kakashi. He likes porn, dangerous missions, and has a bondage fetish. He does not like Tora the cat, cotton sheets, wool sweaters, and absolutely _hates_ 'why did the chicken cross the road' jokes. I am not going to even go into dreams because it would completely deflower your poor virgin ears and likely mentally scar you for life, and his favorite food is (magical random drumroll)…… miso ramen."

When Kiri go to the last part, everyone, including Kakashi stared at her in shock. She turned to Kakashi who was still gaping at her.

"Ha, how did you know any of that?'

" Oh, half of them were rumors, the porn, sweaters, sheets and jokes were quite obvious, and the dream, well, lets just say I've been mentally scarred since the day we became genin and Anko decided it was a good idea to try and get you drunk. To say the least, it worked and you probably don't even remember since you could barely even spit out that you needed a 'pretty lady bird to carry me home to my nice soft sheets to do …'. Enough said. Now it's my turn."

Kakashi was still staring at her in near disbelief.

_Oh, well. He'll get over it. Plus, it'll be fun to see what Naruto and Sakura do with this…interesting information._

"My name is Gintora Akiri. I like weapons, tigers, training, eating and making dango, pranks, and my sharpie. I don't like perverts, Orochimaru, giant rampaging things that kill me, and the judge for the written genin exams this year. He sucks. My dream is… yet to be determined beyond becoming the best ninja ever, and my favorite food in the whole wide world is RAMEN!!!!"

Naruto and Sakura looked surprised at her ramen outburst, but Naruto smiled and flashed her a thumbs up and Sakura gave her a 'wonderful, it's a second Naruto' kind of look. Kakashi however, looked like he was going to go into "interrogation mode" and just stared at her like he was going to kill her if she didn't explain further.

"You know what Kakashi? Staring at me like that is not going to make me cough up any more information. I believe I still have to take the genin 'survival training' test, right?"

Kakashi nodded.

" OK, if you can manage to keep the bells away from me for two whole hours, then I will tell you anything you would like to know and I will allow you to read perverted books in my presence for a week. If I manage to steal both bells before two hours is up…" she chuckled evilly. "You will admit that I am more amazing than you, you will buy me and the rest of the team breakfast wherever we want, and you will not read a single perverted book in front of me for the rest of your life, or else. Deal?"

Kakashi nodded quickly, got up, and started walking towards the training grounds.

_Wow, he must be really curious. I don't think he's ever actually agreed to one of my deals and I can't believe he actually risked losing his porn privelidges. He's usually smarter than that. Oh well, his loss._

She, Naruto, and Sakura hurried to catch up with Kakashi as he walked to training ground 7, where Kiri's two new teammates had recently had their own success on the test. Kiri brought the dango with her for a group snack. She knew that the test wouldn't last too long.

Once they all caught up to the jounin, Kiri spoke up

"Hey Kakashi, you might not want to use those bells. If you do, I can guarantee that I'll have them within two seconds. I suggest you find something else for me to retrieve. Specifically something not made of metal. Just a suggestion." Kakashi looked at her weird, but pulled out a second copy of Icha Icha Paradise.

"OK, if you think so. This will do for a target, don't you think?"

"Perfect." Akiri replied smiling coolly, "As long as you don't mind it being destroyed completely beyond repair when I get a hold of it." Kakashi quickly rethought his choice and instead pulled out one of those cheap plastic spider rings that you get at Halloween. However, this spider looked a little different for some reason and had a Hello Kitty face painted on its rear end.

"Kakashi," Kiri said, holding back laughter, "Why do you have a Hello Kitty plastic spider ring?"

"It was a gift that came along with a sharpie make-over that I somehow acquired during the academy. It wouldn't come off my ring finger for a week." Kakashi replied.

Kiri grinned as she remembered, though she didn't ask why the heck he had actually _kept_ a Hello Kitty Spider Ring for nearly 21 years. She wasn't sure she wanted to know if he liked it. He had had enough embarrassment…… for that day. They arrived at training ground 7 and she and Kakashi moved to the middle of the clearing. Sakura and Naruto decided to observe from perches atop the training posts and Akiri and Kakashi faced off. (Yay, real first battle scene. Hope it doesn't suck too much, I'm not too good at this)

Kakashi and Akiri faced each other from opposite ends of the field and watched their opponent, trying to judge when the other would attack. They stared at each other for about two minutes and Naruto and Sakura started eating the dango Kiri made with obvious delight.

Kiri finally got tired of the staring competition and ran into the surrounding woods. Kakashi's eye opened wide when he couldn't follow her movement. Kiri set up a number of wire traps in the surrounding forest and then quickly hid in a tree near the clearing to observe her target. Kakashi stood in the middle of the clearing, reading his book. Annoyed tic marks appeared on her forehead.

_Geeze, the guy doesn't see me for fifteen years and all he wants to do is read porn. He needs to get a life. It's about time he found out why I wasn't just called the Prank Master. Konoha's Steel Terror is back with a few tricks up her metaphorical sleeve._

She quietly took a kunai out of her pouch and threw it, aiming at his book, before quickly moving to another tree. Kakashi caught the kunai an inch from his treasured book.

"You'll have to do way better than that Kiri. Stop holding back, or are you not the Steel Terror of Konoha?"

Kiri bit back a chuckle.

_So he does remember, I'm flattered. Now lets see if he remembers anything else._

She tripped all of the traps that she had set up by disconnecting the main cable from its anchor. A hail of kunai, shuriken, and various shovel tips that seemed to be plastered with exploding notes whistled out of the forest surrounding Kakashi. The jounin quickly jumped straight up to avoid the rain of metal, only to find more coming at him from above. He quickly used a substitution jutsu and teleported into the forest. The weapons dove into the log that used to have grey hair and a mask, then flew out the other side, cleaving clean through the wood. The shovels planed themselves point down in a circle around the log and then exploded. Kakashi, watching from the bushes, sweat dropped.

_If I had been that log, I would have been dead at least twice over. I guess she finally stopped playing._

Akiri smirked from her hiding place in the tree right above the copy ninja. He hadn't even noticed her yet.

_Well, time to change that._

She dropped down from the tree, kunai in hand, directly onto Kakashi's back and pinned him to the ground. "Kakashi, that was way too easy," she said in a bored tone as she twisted his arms behind his back, "where's the original?"

The clone did not reply and simply poofed out of existence without a word.

_Damn it! Now I have to find the real one….. Or, I could just wait for him to find me!_

She thought, grinning evilly. She stood up, put away her kunai, and strode into the middle of the clearing where she promptly laid down and went to sleep. Kakashi once again sweat dropped from the bushes on the opposite side of the clearing at the antics of his new "student".

_What is she doing? Either she's not taking this at all seriously, or she's planning something. I if I know her at all, it's the latter._

Kakashi slowly walked out into the clearing, kunai out, careful not to make any sort of noise as he circled closer and closer to the girl.

_Wow, she's actually sleeping from the look of her chakra signature. What in the world is she doing?_

He finally stepped next to the sleeping form of the kunoichi and gently nudged her in the side with his foot.

"Akiri, if you're not going to take this seriously, you're going to end up answering a lot of questions, and not just ones about where you've been."

Suddenly, the girl smirked and her chakra signature practically exploded as she woke up in a split second. She grabbed his foot, twisted over, and slammed him face down into the ground. He made a very nice dent in the dirt that was about three inches deep. She quickly stood up, still holding his ankle and flung him across the clearing, into the forest and through several trees. Kakashi stood up slowly and walked back to the clearing with a slight limp. He was covered in tree parts and had multiple leaves and sticks tangled in his hair. Kiri smirked at his rumpled appearance and dropped into her usual taijutsu stance, beckoning at him with her finger. Kakashi warily dropped into his own stance and they returned briefly to their staring competition.

_Boring! Back where we started. Maybe I should stop going easy on him and actually use some of my weapons. He's either improved enough to defend himself, or I'm going to pulverize him. Glad I remembered to wear my chains today. Need to get back into the habit of wearing them every day again._

Kiri grinned and stuck her tongue out at her new sensei, then grabbed a chain in each hand and unwound them from her torso, letting them clank onto the ground.

Kakashi didn't remember anyone ever mentioning that Kiri used chains in combat and he couldn't ever seeing them before. Shock of his life when she grinned even wider.

Kiri chuckled as Kakashi's eye went as wide as electric purple chakra leaked out of her body, forming her tail as the thin black rings around her eyes started to form and her eyes started to glow. Her canines lengthened and her fingers sported hooked claws. She thought his eyeball was going to pop out of the socket if it got any bigger when she snapped the thick chains like whips, and they turned into two, giant, heavy looking, double bladed battle axes.

""Kakashi, a fly is going to fly in there and have its children on your tongue if you don't stop gaping. You didn't really think the Steel Terror came to a fight without her steel? I thought you read Flower-chan's report on my new status. I'm a Jinchuuriki now. Don't underestimate me." Kiri reprimanded in a mock scolding voice.

Kakashi looked lost when she called her ANBU proctor 'Flower-chan' but he quickly made the connection and remembered back to the file he'd been given on his new teammate.

_Wow. How did I actually forget the fact that she can manipulate metal? That's not exactly a minor detail._

Kakashi dropped lower in his stance and pulled out two kunai.

"Silly Kakashi. Are you really going to be able to block two four hundred pound battle axes with those little things? Never even mind the fact that they're metal and I could absorb them into my axes in a second." Kiri taunted as she charged at her friend head on, her axes held close to her body, ready to strike or block.

Kakashi paled as two three foot long axes whistled his way. Kiri lashed out with one, aiming for his head, and he ducked just in time to see the second sweeping up from under him. He jumped back and narrowly escaped getting castrated like she had threatened earlier. He had no time to ponder it as she spun and lashed out with her foot aimed at his chest. He rushed to block the kick with his arm. Unfortunately, this was not the best idea. Her kick had way more force behind it than he had expected and her foot slammed into him and sent him flying across the clearing.

_Damn, she's as strong as Sakura!_

He barely had time to think as he jumped up from where he had landed in a tree before she was on him again, this time with her arms and axes crossed and flying towards him. He brought his kunai up and managed to block her strike, leaning and straining to keep the weapons from separating his torso from his legs. Kiri grinned.

"Nice job Copy Ninja. Do you play as nicely with katanas?"

Kiri jumped back and her axes quickly melted into two silver katana.

Kakashi sighed and lifted his headband to reveal his Sharingan. He was definitely going to need it. This was turning into more of a battle than an easy genin test.

Kiri smiled at the appearance of the red, swirling eye.

_Finally getting serious. Now lets see if he can keep up with me._

Kiri swung the weapons into a guard position and waited for Kakashi to make the first move. Kakashi dropped his kunai and started making hand signs as fast as he could. All Kiri could see was a blur, but she knew either something big was going to try to crush her, or something else was going to come out and grab her. It turned out to be the first as a giant water dragon rose out of the stream in the nearby forest and plunged towards her. Kiri crouched and molded her katana into a dome-like shield around her, bracing herself for the on-coming torrent. The dragon hit her shield heavily, spraying water in several directions. Kiri pushed back on her shield and skidded back a few inches before coming to a halt.

Kakashi attacked her from the rear as the last of the water dragon dissipated and Kiri molded the metal to form a complete globe around her. Kakashi warily stepped back. Then the sphere began to rise into the air, taking Kiri with it. Kakashi stared as it ascended and then suddenly appeared to melt from the top down to reveal Kiri standing on a silver disk about three feet wide, arms crossed and smirking. Then she bent down to the disk, plunged her hand into it, and pulled out another silver katana. She braced herself, then directed the disk, sending it and her on top of it, speeding towards the now panting jounin.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the approaching silver meteor and pulled out another kunai.

Akiri arrived back on earth with a bang, hopped off her still hovering disk and attacked Kakashi is a flurry of movement.

_Damn, she's fast too. Even with my Sharingan its hard to keep up. I can see what's going to happen, but I'm barely fast enough to react. This is not going to be easy. If she starts mixing in taijutsu, I'm going to have to resort to long range, if she'll let me. I can barely keep up and if I block too many kicks or punches with mine, I'm bound to end up with broken bones. She's practically dancing circles around me with that sword._

Kiri spun in the middle of a parry and whipped her foot up and into the jounin's chin, sending him several feet into the air. She leapt to join him and flicked her sword in a series of arcs, sending ends of silver hairs and edges of clothing to float down to the ground before swiftly and accurately slicing through the band of the spider ring on her sensei's left hand, neatly separating it from his hand without leaving so much as a scratch. She quickly reached down and plucked it from the air before landing easily on her disk. Kakashi was not so lucky as to have a flying metal disk though and Kiri caught him by the ankle with her other chain, leaving her poor friend to hang upside down.

"Well Kakashi, you asked me to get serious. And look at the time, it's only been forty-five minutes. You owe us breakfast." Kiri chided as she gently lowered the silver haired man to the ground.

Kakashi had to admit that she had definitely given him a run for his money.

Kiri hopped off the hovering disk and grabbed the edge of it, then compressed it and the katana back into the two chains and rewrapped them around her shoulder and torso. Kakashi slowly stood up, feeling rather battered, and watched curiously as the purple chakra, claws, and fangs receded, leaving her looking as if she had just gone for a walk in the park.

Kiri laughed softly and offered him her shoulder to lean on as they looked around for the rest of the team, who had apparently moved from the training posts to avoid the battle. He grinned and accepted it, draping his arm across her shoulder as she braced herself slightly to bear some of his weight. He was still favoring his leg a little from the first time she had thrown him into a tree. It didn't seem serious, and it wasn't broken, but he would probably have to ask Sakura of Tsunade to look at it for him.

Kiri gave him a bow, somehow managing to avoid tipping both him and herself over in the process.

"I thank you very much for the spar, Kakashi." She rose up from her bow and gave him a smile to rival Naruto's. "That was the best challenge I've had in 15 years! Plus it was almost as fun as hanging that old fuddy-duddy genin exam judge from the Hokage's nose!"

Kakashi looked at her in surprise.

"That was you? I thought it was Naruto."

Akiri grinned evilly. "He deserved it. Who in their right mind treats the Prank Master of Konoha like a disobedient six year old while making her retake the genin exam with a bunch of dwarfs? Said dwarfs may be cool, but that's not the point. It's basically asking to get hung upside-down from the Hokake's nose dressed in a geisha dress and make up with a sign welded to your forehead that says 'I am an arrogant fart face and my mother was a hamster'. It's just common sense."

Kakashi smiled, he had seen the unfortunate elder as he was walking to the team meeting and had meant to talk to his blond haired teammate about it. Lucky he hadn't, since he didn't do it.

They both turned back to see what Sakura and Naruto were doing and searched around for a few minutes before Akiri found them and pulled Kakashi over to look at the funny sight.

Naruto and Sakura were sitting on the branch of one of the bigger trees, hugging each other with seemingly permanent looks of shock and amazement on their faces. Akiri fell over laughing and Kakashi hastily untangled himself before he fell over too and went over to shake them and try to get them back on track to reality. He was unsuccessful until Akiri managed to stop laughing long enough to say "Naruto, Sakura, unless the two of you plan on making out while you're hugging, I would suggest you wake up really quick. If you decide to stay put, I will gladly video tape you and play it from every television in the village."

Naruto and Sakura quickly separated, both blushing and screaming that that was not at all necessary and they were completely awake now. Kakashi and Kiri smirked at their loud protests and pink faces.

Kakashi sighed and gestured towards Sakura.

"Sakura, would you please heal my leg, I don't feel like using one of you for a crutch for the rest of the day."

Sakura quickly stopped stuttering and walked over to her sensei who was now sitting under the tree, serious the minute someone mentioned work. She sat down and quickly examined his knee with her chakra, her hand glowing green.

"There's nothing serious, just a pulled tendon and some bruising." She extended the green glow to wrap around said knee and was finished in a matter of seconds. Kiri and Naruto looked on interestedly before turning to each other and exclaiming at the same time.

"Your're a Jinchuuriki too!!?!!"

Sakura and Kakashi sweatdropped, thinking along the same lines of

_Did they just figure that out now?_

Kiri and Naruto stared at each other for a couple more seconds before both starting to speak at the same time. They both attempted again and Kiri finally just gestured for Naruto to go first, which he did with great enthusiasm.

"You're a Jinchuuriki? Which demon? Why do you have it? Why haven't I ever heard of you? How come you're wearing Konoha headband and I've never seen you before? Are you really my new teammate? How come you went to the Academy with Kakashi-sensei and you're still a kid? Kakashi's old. How come you could control metal? Why were you using your demon's chakra? Could I do that too? How do you do that? Can you teach me? I…"

Kiri cut him off, placing her hand gently over his mouth.

"Seriously, you're as bad a Konohamaru. One at a time please. Which one do you want answered first?"

Naruto looked down at her hand, which was still shutting him up, and then looked back at her. Kiri was puzzled at why he wasn't answering. Then a light bulb appeared and she removed her hand, using the other to scratch the back of her head while chuckling embarrassedly.

"Hehe, sorry about that."

Kakashi and Sakura continued staring from their seats on the ground. Kiri was giving them both a serious case of déjà vu of Naruto.

Naruto thought for a minute before coming up with his question.

"Which demon and what about the metal?"

Kiri sat down facing Sakura and her new team leader before answering. Naruto soon joined them as she explained her situation and answered a few more questions from them, especially when she told them about meeting their wayward teammate. That prompted a flurry of questions from all of them, including Kakashi.

"okay, okay. Please stop the endless stream of questions before I drown!" Kiri laughed. "I'm not going to get anywhere with you guys interrupting! Sit back and listen to the story, leave questions for after. Deal?"

Naruto and Sakura nodded their heads emphatically while Kakashi just stared at her.

"I guess I'll take that as a yes." And Kiri began recounting her time with the younger Uchiha.

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**And that's a wrap, for now at least. Sorry about the cliffy. Hopefully I'll be able to get the fourth chapter up soon, but i don't know. My parents are probably going to make me study for the regents coming up. EEEEEEEWWWW! **

**Next time: A deal with snakey junior, Akiri's first genin mission (in a while anyway), and Kurobi decides to make an appearance (finally).  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey everybody, aye bee bak. Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry times a thousand that it took so long for me to write this. Who would have figured that its easier for me to write while I'm not supposed to during school than when I have nothing to do in the summer? But, I guess I'm just weird that way :P. Ne way, here's the next chapter. I changed the story line a little from what I originally had so no Sasuke yet. On with the show!**

_Thoughts_

Regular stuff

"Talking" (kind of obviously)

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Chapter 4

Kiri shifted silently on the tree branch where her look out point was overlooking a clearing. It was Team 7's first official mission since she had joined and she would be danged if she was the one to lose their target.

"Kitty to team, is everyone ready? I am in position, but the target has not yet made its appearance." she whispered into her com link.

"Flower to team, I am in position. Target in sight. Ready for signal."

"Fox to team, I am totally ready for this. Oh yeah, and I can see the target too. Why are we still doing D class missions? Sakura's a chuunin and Kakashi's a jounin and I just spent two years training and we're still chasing after…."

"Bed Head to team, I am in position. Target has been sighted. Be ready for the signal. Fox, you haven't changed a bit." Kakashi interrupted Naruto and then paused.

"Bed Head to Team, we need to not let Kiri pick the code names."

The rest of Team 7 laughed quietly into their microphones.

"Flower to Bed Head, you're the only one who's complaining about the names. Wait, target is moving. Direction, due west, speed, walking. Everyone make sure to stay within sight of the target."

"Bed Head to team, be ready for the signal, Kitty, be ready to move when the target reaches the decided point."

"Flower copy, ready."

"Fox copy and ready.

"Kitty copy and ready."

"Bed Head to team, ready…… NOW!"

Kakashi, Sakura, Naruto all jumped at the target from different directions, scaring it and driving it towards the clearing where Kiri laid in wait. They gave chase until the target was right on the edge of the clearing before fanning out and stealthily slipping back into the bushes. The target sniffed the air, nose raised and then locked eyes on the pile of fish mysteriously located under the hanging branch of one of the trees. The target looked around suspiciously, before contentedly trotting over to the pile with a smug look.

Kiri tensed minutely on the branch over the pile of tasty treats. She slowly raised her hand out in front of her, over the pile. The target seemed unaware and began devouring the feast of fish presented to it. Kiri smiled and then quickly raised her hand and lifted the metal cage from where she and Naruto had buried it beneath the pile of bait, making sure to close the door as quickly as possible and latching it tight, successfully trapping the target.

"Kitty to team. Target captured. Repeat, target captured. Now everyone can breathe. Who wants to do a victory dance? I'm pretty sure this is a record. It only took us ten minutes and thirty-four seconds to catch that dang cat!"

Naruto exploded out from behind his bush and whooped, running over to the cage and lifting it above his head. Unfortunately for him, the fish had been trapped in the cage along with the cat and were small enough to fit through the bars and one landed with a soft squelch on his head.

"Eeeeeew, get it off!" Naruto exclaimed, shaking his head wildly and accidentally dropping the cage. Luckily, Sakura had been just behind him in leaving her cover and caught the cage before it and its now hissing and spitting occupant hit the ground.

"Naruto, be a little more careful! We were supposed to FIND Tora the cat, NOT give her brain damage." Sakura scolded while rolling her eyes. Some things never changed.

Kakashi calmly melted back into the clearing, eye smiling at his two former students' antics. Kiri followed, a lot less calmly and doing a victory dance which seemed to include some cartwheels, summersaults and ended with her flipping onto Tora's cage which Sakura had gently placed on the ground while watching her new teammate's display.

"WHOOOOO-HOOOO! OH YEAH! WE TOTALLY ROCK! NOW LETS BRING THIS SUCKER IN!!" Kiri quickly hopped off, swooped the cage and a very angry cat onto her shoulder, and ran full speed towards the Hokage Tower.

" COME ON SLOW-POKES, ITS STARTING TO GET DARK AND I HAVEN'T HAD DINNER YET!! LAST ONE AT THE TOWER IS A ROTTEN LIMA BEAN!!" She yelled behind her as she dashed into the trees.

"YOU ARE SO ON!!" Naruto yelled back before running to catch his teammate. Sakura and Kakashi both stared after them for a few seconds before turning to each other, rolling their eyes, and "hurrying" after their hyper teammates, the same thought running through their heads.

_Well at least we'll never get bored._

~The Hokage Tower- around a few seconds later~

Tsunade was once again plodding through her paperwork, currently reading over a trade proposal from Suna to increase the amount of goods moving between the two villages. If she approved the increase, it would really help Konoha and Suna's economies, but the road that went from Konoha to the edge of the Land of Fire that was commonly used by the traders would need to be either repaired or expanded, probably both, to accommodate the increase in the number of caravans using it. Tsunade sighed, the council was being so troublesome she was starting to use Shikamaru's favorite phrase. Getting the funding for the road would be a hassle.

She stared out her window and then back at the three tall stacks of papers she still had to sort through, and then promptly hit her head on her desk in resignation. She was going to have to pull another all-nighter just to get today's paperwork done before tomorrow's came in. She sat up and looked carefully around her office. Shizune was nowhere in sight and her hand crept down towards the concealed drawer under her desk where she hid her sake. She was just about to turn the key in the lock when….

"YAY! I WIN! HEY TSUNADE, WE GOT HER!" Kiri burst through the door to Tsunade's office and the blond quickly pulled the key out of the lock and hid it in her pocket again with a sigh. The sake was going to have to wait.

"Akiri, is it at all possible for you to enter my office like a normal person?" Tsunade asked, staring up at the teenage girl who was standing on the ceiling, holding a metal cat carrier and a thoroughly terrified Tora the cat over her head, her hair hanging down around her face messily.

"Nope." Kiri replied with a smile. "Because I am not at all a normal person. Hey, what's the record for catching the fur ball? We had her in under eleven minutes!"

At this point Naruto burst into the office, right side up, out of breath and nearly banged his head on Tora's cage that was held right about at his eye level. He quickly bent backwards to avoid it, but leaned a little too far and fell backwards onto the floor with a thump.

Kiri and Tsunade stared at him lying on the floor and Naruto started to blush and nervously laughed, rubbing the back of his head.

Kakashi and Sakura walked in the door in a considerably slower pace and nearly stepped on Naruto lying on the floor. Kakashi simply stood with his foot hovering over Naruto's face before replacing it on the floor next to the blonds shoulder and quickly settling against the wall, looking like nothing had happened whatsoever. Sakura was not so lucky and, since she had slightly slower reflexes, tripped over the blonds other shoulder and landed face down on the floor next to him. Kakashi, Tsunade, and Kiri all sweat dropped and Sakura and Naruto both sat up quickly and stood on either side of Kiri who had remained on the ceiling.

"Soooo, " Kiri started, still a little unsure of how all that had happened. "Where do we drop off the package?"

Tsunade shook her head and decided to pretend that the incident hadn't happened.

"Kiri, please get off the ceiling, your face is turning red. You can leave the cat next to my desk and I'll have one of the other genin deliver her to her owner in the morning." Tsunade nodded towards the seat next to her desk.

Kiri quickly flipped off the ceiling and deposited the dizzy cat on the indicated seat.

After a brief mission report from Kakashi and a slightly longer berating from Tsunade about proper office entering protocol, Kiri and the others parted ways and headed home.

The night was warm, with a nice breeze blowing through the village, between the houses and shops along the street. It was only nine o'clock, so there was still some soft summer light left to see by. Kiri decided to walk home at a normal pace to enjoy the weather. Not every day felt so nice, and when winter came, she wanted to have as many happy memories of being warm as she could. Cold was not her thing. At all.

It had been a week since she had been assigned to Team 7 and since then she had finally moved into her own apartment, which meant that she had spent most of the week either training with Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura to work on their team work, or running back and forth between the Hokage's estate on the outskirts of the village to her new apartment, carrying boxes and bags that frequently were piled so high she couldn't see. Plus, of course, her apartment was on nearly the opposite side of the village from Tsunade's estate, near the front gate and the main shopping area in the village. Her arms and legs were still aching. She must be more out of shape than she thought, staying incognito at Tsunade's had really taken its toll.

She resolved to train every day for the next forever and walked slowly, enjoying herself. There were a few stores open and a couple bars and clubs and bars were still blaring light and music out onto the street. She smiled.

_Its good to be back. A year in the woods will really make you miss music._

She changed direction and headed into the nearest club, chosen for its swirling lights and heavy base. Inside was a mass of writhing, dancing people, some of whom were shinobi. She slowly made her way through the crowd to the middle of the pulsing mass and started to dance. She loved dancing, the base tearing though her body, and everyone dancing together, being themselves, and just letting go and letting the music move them. Her favorite song came on next and she grinned even wider.

She spent another hour dancing at the club. She was by herself, but enjoying it to the utmost. It felt good to let go. She hadn't recognized any of her fellow shinobi since most of them were younger. They had been children when she was a jounin. She chuckled at the thought. The song ended and she decided that she had best be going, there would be more missions and training tomorrow and she would need the sleep. If she stayed any longer, she probably wouldn't be able to pry herself away and stay until dawn. She sighed and made her way out of the crowd and away from the pulsing lights and bodies. She was just about to step outside when someone at the bar noticed her. She was instantly on guard as the woman walked up behind her.

"Who are you?" she asked warily stopping without turning to face her follower.

"Gee, ya go away for like forever and you forget who your best friends are." The woman replied cheekily.

Kiri spun around to face the woman and then grinned madly.

"ANKO-CHAN!!!!" she yelled over the music and tackled the purple haired snake jounin. Anko smirked and dodged Kiri's welcome by inches. Kiri's momentum kept her going for a couple feet before she spun, skidded and ran back to her best friend, this time catching her in the back and grabbing her, hoisting her up to carry her over her shoulder and carrying her off towards her house, both of them laughing ecstatically.

Kiri carried Anko the two blocks to her building before dumping her friend on her butt on the doormat. They finally stopped laughing and Anko stood up and hugged the Jinchuuriki girl. Kiri smiled back and hugged her back before poking her in the side. Anko squeaked and jumped back into the door.

"HEY!! I don't see my best friend for fifteen years, and then she pokes me! That is so not fair. It should be against the law!" she pouted as she stood away from the door and Kiri led her up the stairs to her third story apartment, unlocking the door and pushing her still pouting friend inside.

"Hey, I haven't seen you in fifteen years and you don't even let me tackle you properly!" Kiri whined, still smiling. She flipped the light switch and looked around her apartment. It had two rooms; her newly painted orange bedroom was through a door on the right and the front room, which she had left white and served as a living room and kitchen. She hadn't gotten a table yet and had been just eating from her couch. Furniture was expensive. Anko sighed and flopped down onto her couch, putting her feet on the armrest and her hands behind her head.

"I can't believe you're still taller than me. Why in the world did you get the height genes? Stop that, it makes me feel even shorter!" She shrieked as Kiri loomed over her lounging friend and stared down at her.

Kiri grinned and sat on the only other chair in the room.

"So what's up Mijikai?" Kiri asked, grinning.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!! And I'm not telling you a thing unless you make me some of your dango right now! I went through dango withdrawal after you died and it took forever to get used to the horrible stuff everyone else makes. I demand to be re-addicted before I give you anything!" Anko admonished. Kiri chuckled and went to the kitchen, getting out the ingredients.

"If you want dango, you gotta work for it _**Mijikai.**_ Start moving that mouth."

Kiri and Anko traded news and dango for another three hours until they were both practically asleep on their asses. Kiri yawned and walked the three thousand miles (approx. twenty feet when you measure it with a ruler) to her bed and collapsed, not even changing into her pajamas and just fell asleep. Anko was just as tired as her friend and had fallen asleep on the couch while Kiri was dragging herself to her bed.

Kiri smirked as she fell into darkness.

Anko snored.

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_BEEP!_

_BEEP!!_

_BEEP!!!_

_BEEP BEEP!!_

_BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!!!!!_

_SMASH_

Kiri groggily raised her head from her pillow and looked at the wall on her right. She'd smashed her alarm clock through it. Again.

_I give up. I am not patching that wall again. God I need to stop killing my alarm clocks. If I don't, I'm gonna have to spend all my paychecks on those instead of food. I don't think I could live without ramen._

Her head thumped back down on to her pillow and she groaned. Mornings. Sucked. Bad.

She slowly rolled out of bed and stood up, heading for the bathroom with a change of clothes. She sleepily undressed and turned on the shower.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" she screamed as the water came down ice cold. She quickly snapped awake and bolted out of the stream of water and cranked the controls to the hottest setting they would go. She waited a minute before cautiously putting out a hand to check the temperature and was relieved to find it scalding hot.

_That was nearly a very bad accident._

She sighed happily as she stepped back under the now boiling hot water and continued with her shower.

Five minutes later the bathroom was completely filled with steam as she stepped out of the shower, dried off, and pulled on her clothes. She quickly whipped out a hair drier and a brush and attacked her hair (which was hanging and dripping like a curtain in front of her face). She emerged from the bathroom completely awake and bounded towards the kitchen for her morning ramen and stopped cold halfway across the room. Someone was on her couch. She had stopped midstride on one foot and she quickly dropped into a fighting stance as she continued to stare at the bundle of blanket and purple hair on her couch.

_Wait. Purple Hair._

She let out a long breath and finished her mad dash to the pantry. She got out four bowls of instant ramen ready (one for Anko) and set them in the sink. She didn't want to be holding their breakfast while she woke her guest. One, just waking Anko up was a hazardous job. She was just as much a morning person as Kiri was, but Kiri didn't have bloodthirsty tendencies. Two, she would need to move out of the way _fast_. Which would probably mean she'd spill the ramen all over, and that was just a sad waste of ramen.

She cautiously tiptoed over to the sleeping bundle and tried to discern where her head was. It was rather difficult since she seemed to have completely enveloped herself in the blanket, which was the same purple as her hair. She finally gave up and just braced herself before yanking the entire bundle onto the floor.

"MIJIKAI-CHAN!! IT'S TIME TO RISE AND SHINE!! DON'T KILL MEEEE!!!! I MADE BREAKFAST!!! ITS IN THE SIIINK!" She yelled as she ran into her bathroom. The bundle exploded into a mass of snarling Anko and several kunai followed Kiri through the bedroom thudded into the bathroom door she shut behind her. Kiri cautiously cracked the door open and peeked out.

_Phew!!!_

Anko had taken the peace offering of breakfast and was getting one of the bowls from the sink. Kiri cautiously opened the door the rest of the way and warily approached her friend who had taken her bowl to the couch and was slowly eating it. When Anko growled but made no move in her direction, Kiri decided that the situation was probably safe and retrieved the remaining ramen.

"Itadakimasu!" Kiri said cheerfully.

"Hn" Anko replied, still eating.

"Well good morning to you too, Anko-chan!" Kiri chirped.

"You are way too happy, and what's with the ramen for breakfast? Please tell me you've gotten over your ramen obsession."

"Sorry, no can do. That would be lying."

"_-groan-"_

"So, you have any missions today?"

"None, just patrolling. You?"

"Nothing as of yet, just training with Sakura, Naruto, and Bed Head."

"Bed Head? No wait, never mind. I know who."

"Yup. Hey, want to come along,? We could use the practice working as a complete team. Mostly we've been doing three on one and it gets kind of boring."

"Sure. Yall ready for this?"

Kiri laughed. She had just polished off her last bowl and Anko had finished hers so she gathered up the dishes and dumped them in the sink.

Then her door burst open and a panting jounin stood in her doorway.

"Gintora Akiri?" Kiri nodded in confirmation. "Phew, good. Hokage-sama needs you now. It's extremely urgent. The rest of your team is already on their way. I couldn't find you…" He fell over backwards as Kiri sped past him and down the hall, her chains flying from where she had dumped them on her bedroom floor last night to swing them selves into place around her torso.

"ANKO CAN YOU DO THE DISHES I GOTTA GO THERE'S LEFTOVER DANGO IN THE FRIDGE DON'T TOUCH MY RAMEN STASH!!!" She yelled back to her still sleepy friend while speeding into the stairwell.

Anko groaned at the dishes, but perked up when dango was mentioned and got it out of the fridge faster than you can say 'fish'. She had already consumed several by the time she ran back to the couch. The poor tired jounin who had delivered the news was still lying on his back in the doorway watching her eat. Anko looked at him and smiled. She got up, dango in hand, walked over to the gasping man, and nudged him out the door with her foot before slamming the door and saying in a rather scary voice, "My dango, you can't have any."

Kiri raced up the stairs of the Hokage tower and down the short hall to the Hokage's office. The ANBU guards at the door didn't even bother stopping her once they saw who it was. Or at least they saw the streak of electric blue and black and weren't fast enough to react as said blur flashed through the door. So they just pretended that they had meant to do that and continued guarding the door.

Kiri came to a screeching halt in front of Tsunade's desk, Naruto and Sakura on either side of her and Kakashi in his usual place leaning on the wall. They all jerked in surprise as she ran in but quickly pretended nothing had happened and Tsunade stood up behind her desk to address the newly formed Team Kakashi. It took about that long for Akiri to notice that there was another person in the room. She was a little bit shorter than Kiri and had four spiky, blond ponytails and a giant fan that she was leaning on. She looked anxious and was frowning impatiently.

_Who in the world is that, and what is she doing here? She's from Suna judging by her headband. I heard we have an alliance with them since Orochimaru made that attack during the chuunin exams, but are we really this friendly with them? The others seem to know her and they aren't being guarded at all. I am sooooo confused. Oh well, their friend equals mine._

Kiri walked over to the Suna nin and stuck out her hand.

" Gintora Akiri, nice to meet you." She said smiling. "Now who in the world are you? Tsunade, you're really slow on introductions."

The girl looked at her kind of funny before laughing and taking her hand.

"Subaku no Temari of Suna. I've been sent with an urgent request for assistance from my village. Could you hurry up Tsunade, Akiri-san is right, you're being slow."

Tsunade watched the slightly strange conversation and huffed. She was not being slow! They hadn't even given her a chance to breathe for kami's sake!

"Fine, Suna has requested aid from Konoha's medical force and also has requested a retrieval team. Apparently two Akatsuki members have kidnapped Kazekage-sama and his brother Kankuro has been severely poisoned. I'm sending your team Kakashi, because Sakura will be able to assist the medics working on Kankuro and the rest of you will be able to help rescue the Kazekage. If Naruto got wind of it we wouldn't be able to keep him here if we tied him to a metal pole and Kiri, Gaara-sama is also a Jinchuuriki so it would probably be best to send you as an expert slash fellow container. Temari-san will brief you on the details as you travel. You leave in ten minutes. Get packing and meet at the front gate ready to skedaddle."

Naruto looked like he wanted to murder somebody when Tsunade told them about the Kazekage and Sakura looked worried. Kiri actually looked serious for the first time since they had met her and nodded when Tsunade finished. This would be a welcome change from catching runaway cats.

All of them sped home to pack as fast as they could (minus Kakashi who just poofed to his house to pick up his pack and then took his usual time at the memorial stone). Luckily Kiri had been packed already in anticipation of some emergency or another. When she got back to her apartment Anko had already left, having finished all the dango in the fridge. She quickly gathered her pack and jammed a few extra scrolls into the pockets and clipped her metal bracers on. She wasn't sure what exactly the Akatsuki was, but if they could kidnap a kage, they would definitely be a force to be reckoned with. She would need all the metal she could bring. She quickly brushed her teeth and sped back out the door.

Sakura was almost as prepared and only had to stuff some clean laundry into her pack before running out the door, a look of determination on her face.

Naruto was lucky he had just got back and he still had most of his stuff packed. He dumped the contents of a box into his pack and grabbed up his spare kunai and stuffed them into his weapons pouch. He was going to get his friend back safely, no matter what.

They all were at the gate within five minutes and had to wait another five while Kakashi "got lost on the road of life". Temari was visibly anxious to get going and as soon as Kakashi arrived they departed at a swift jog.

"Temari-san, guys, could someone explain what's going on? I feel like I'm missing something big. Who are the Akatsuki? And what do they want with the Kazekage?" Kiri asked, a little confused.

"The Akatsuki are an organization of seven or eight S-ranked missing nin from various different villages. Their goals are unknown besides the capture of all of the Jinchuuriki. They all wear black cloaks with red clouds on them. All are extremely dangerous. Since Gaara-sama is the Jinchuuriki of the one tailed raccoon, Shukaku, he is a target of the organization. Naruto has also been targeted before, though they were unsuccessful in capturing him. It is possible that you will be targeted if they find out about you housing Kurobi, the twelve tailed tiger. It would be best if you were extremely cautious about who you tell about Kurobi." Kakashi explained in a quiet voice. Kiri smoldered over the news that someone was targeting Jinchuuriki. She felt a bond with her fellow demon containers, they were all black fish in a sea of millions of goldfish, if they didn't stick together and help each other, they'd be awful lonesome and would probably go psycho from being ostracized. People willing to help Jinchuuriki were few and far between, Konoha seemed to be a goldmine of such people, but elsewhere they had few allies.

Kiri and Naruto gritted their teeth in anger, though Naruto more so than Kiri. He actually looked like he was about to explode and his eyes were starting to turn red as he ran. Kiri noticed and hurried up to the front where Naruto and Temari were leading and put her arm on the blond boy's shoulder.

"Naruto, we will get Gaara-sama back. No matter what. I give my word as a shinobi," she vowed. Naruto looked at her face, which was as serious as when they had left Tsunade's office. She was sincere in her vow and her eyes betrayed her rage that was boiling under a mask of determination. He nodded and his eyes slowly faded back to blue. He had only met Kiri a week ago, but he knew that she would never break a promise. She was infinitely loyal to her friends and had expressed that that loyalty extended to all Jinchuuriki. She would help them rescue Gaara and would fight his kidnappers until she collapsed and beyond. His rage and determination were undiminished, but her promise had helped him to regain control over himself. He nodded his thanks, which she returned before dropping back to her position with Kakashi as rear guard.

Temari and the rest of the team had watched the silent message pass between the two demon containers and brightened a little. If there were any way possible to rescue the Kazekage, Konoha's most unpredictable ninja and its resurrected Steel Terror would find it.

"I'll begin briefing you on the situation." Temari deadpanned to the ninja following her. "My brother, Gaara was kidnapped by, as yet, two unidentified members of the Akatsuki. One attacked the village to draw him out while the other appears to have stayed behind waiting. The one who attacked the village had long blond hair and used bombs made from molded clay. He appeared to have mouths on his hands and used them to mold the clay and imbue it with his chakra, which allowed it to explode on command. He also arrived on a large clay bird. Gaara fought said member and managed to remove one of his arms, but was knocked unconscious while directing large amounts of sand to intercept a large bomb that would have destroyed the village. The blond Akatsuki had his bird catch him and he left with Gaara's body in its mouth. My brother Kankuro gave chase alone and managed to track them all the way back to the other Akatsuki member. The blond one escaped when his partner engaged Kankuro. The second member was not identifiable either beyond the fact that he has dark brown hair in braids and a large metal scorpion tail. He and my brother fought. Kankuro was able to give us a basic description of him and his fighting style before he passed out. He was a puppet master without a doubt and somehow knew the workings of all of Kankuro's puppets. All of the weapons he used were coated with an unidentified poison. My brother was hit once and passed out shortly after due to the poison's effects. We have had our top medic, Chiyo-baa-sama, working on him, but we don't have the medical knowledge to help him. He has been unconscious for almost two days now and when I left yesterday he had started to hallucinate. It is our hope that Sakura-san can help my brother and then she and the rest of you can assist with retrieval. We would go after Gaara ourselves, but we need every shinobi we have to defend our village in case they return."

As Temari briefed them, a single tear rolled down her face and was blown away by the wind as they ran. Her face remained determinedly stoic, but Team Kakashi understood her inner turmoil. She was suppressing her worry for her brothers and channeling it to keep herself going. If she had run all the way from Suna to Konoha in a day, she ought to be exhausted. To be making the same trip today… It usually took at least a day and a half to travel between the two villages.

"Come on everyone, we can pick up the pace a little. I've got a blond Akatsuki Barbie to chop into little pieces." Kiri said cheerfully. Everyone grinned; even Temari managed a smile at her completely irrepressible optimism. The girl could probably talk about dying from a painful, gruesome disease and still sound happy about it. They all caught Akiri's adrenaline wave and pushed on at a full out run.

**Yay! Chapter 4's complete! It actually only took me two days too :) Oh yeah, and I realized after writing the last paragraph that I had been spelling Akatsuki wrong the entire chapter. That was fun to fix :P If I missed any please tell me so I can fix it. **

**Oh wonderfull, plus I forgot to do disclaimers. Crap. Ok, instant solution.**

**I, Amira, do not own any part of Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Itachi etc. ever. They all belong to Mr. Kishimoto. (who is a certifiable genius) The only person I own is Akiri and I don't mind if other people borrow her, it would actually be kind of fun.  
**

**Mijikai - short**

**Please review and tell me what you think!! (Insert puppy dog face)****I think I'm just gonna leave it at that so I'll see you later (hopefully soon, probably before school starts but I'm not sure, Volleyball starts tomorrow and it usually kills the first two weeks)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Yay! Fith chapter done! Hope you enjoy :)**

"Talking"

_Thoughts and flashback  
_

**"Kurobi talking"**

_**Kurobi thoughts**  
_

**Chapter 5**

Team Kakashi was seated in the waiting room of Suna's hospital twelve hours later. They had arrived two hours ago in record time, all of them tired. Sakura had immediately rushed into the intensive care section with Temari hot on her heels. Everyone else had been ushered into a waiting room until either Sakura returned and Kankuro was out of danger, or until… well, no one wanted to think about the other option. They often questioned the nurses who passed by, but they were met with the same report every time. Sakura was still working, and Kankuro was not yet showing any improvement. Apparently the poison was unknown to any of the doctors and to Sakura. She was in the process of removing it from Kankuro's body, but it would take a while for the procedure to be complete.

Kiri petrified of hospitals. The smell of chemically cleaned air and white walls all around was making her nauseous and she had a headache. Her hands shook and she knew she must be getting pale. She had had a fear of hospitals for a long time, resulting from a torturous stay after she almost drowned. She sat on a rock hard couch, her legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, and her chin resting on her knees. Naruto sat next to her and was trying to sit still and amuse himself with some random object that one of the nurses had given him and Kakashi sat in one of the two wooden chairs across the room.

He was watching Kiri's face carefully as she became paler and paler. He knew that she was barely containing her fear and the fact that she was not bolting for the door as fast as she could was by sheer force of will. He himself was not happy to be there. Most ninjas developed the fear over time. They were just too often seriously injured to enjoy their stay in any hospital, and it was probably magnified tenfold for Kiri. From what he had heard, she had spent a year living in the forests just inside Fire Country. Living in the open for such a long period of time probably resulted in claustrophobia when she returned to living in the village, where everything and everyone was on top of one another. The fact that this was a hospital made the claustrophobia that much worse.

He had been training with her the day she almost drowned and he shivered at the memory.

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(flashback)

"_Kakashi, come on, stop holding back on me."_ _A nine year old Kiri huffed. She was drenched in sweat, her clothes ripped in several places, her arms and legs bore numerous shallow cuts, and a nasty looking bruise blossomed on her left shoulder. Her arms and legs were shaking with fatigue, but her breathing remained determinedly even, her katana raised in a guard position. They had been sparring for the better part of four hours and Kakashi was amazed that she was still standing. He was shaking almost as much as she was and sported his own array of scratches and bruises, though his were slightly deeper and more numerous, though far from life threatening. _

_He had kept the upper hand for almost the entirety of the battle by forcing her to fight at long distance. She was a close range fighter, preferring to use taijutsu and kenjutsu. She had little talent for genjutsu or ninjutsu. He had used mainly ninjutsu so far, keeping her guessing and dodging. She had managed to get close to him a couple times and made it clear that if this had been a purely physical fight, she would have won. Her skills with her katana had been at least jounin level since she had graduated from the academy. He had no idea who had taught her, but they must have been a master. Her weakness though was ninjutsu without a doubt. She had a surprisingly small number of them that she used herself and she frequently had to use the geography and her katana to dodge or block his attacks, which was probably why she had asked him to train with her. He was the top of their class in ninjutsu and he and his teammates, Obito and Rin made up one of the offensively geared groups of their year. She had specifically asked him to throw every ninjutsu he could at her so she could improvise better ways for countering them._

"_What's with the hold up, Kakashi?" Kiri sounded confused, hoping maybe he was finally going to admit he was tired so she could get some ramen for dinner. _

"_I think it is time to finish up. It is getting dark and I have a meeting with my team this evening. How about you take one more try at me and then we will call it a day." Kakashi responded, looking at the darkening sky. The sun was setting and dark clouds were approaching from the south, threatening rain._

"_Sounds good to me!" Kiri replied happily. "Hey, can we go no holds barred, there is something I have been practicing and I'd like to see if I can actually use it in combat."_

_Kakashi nodded before quickly sprinting towards her, warily watching for whatever this new surprise was. She was often overly creative in her counters, balloon clones, laughing gas bombs and other seemingly ridiculous things created more problems and hindrances than one would think. He was surprised to see her actually doing hand signs for a ninjutsu. Even more surprising was that he did not recognize the sequence at all and there were even a few signs that he didn't recognize. She quickly went through thirty different signs before jumping back to avoid his kunai that he had jabbed at her shoulder, continuing for a dozen more signs as she landed. She ended in one of the unfamiliar seals, her palms flat against each other and fingers spread, middle fingers folded over the backs of her hands.  
_

"_Tenkuu-yuurei" She whispered, and vanished into thin air. Kakashi froze, she had completely disappeared. There was no scent, no signs of movement, he couldn't even hear her breathing, or sense her chakra signature. It was as if she had disappeared from the face of the earth._

_Then he felt a hand strike his neck, right on the pressure point. Pain exploded through his body and he was momentarily paralyzed, dropping to the ground in a heap. She took advantage of his momentary incapacity and swiftly pinned him under her so he could not wiggle free or make any hand signs. As soon as the pain ended, so did his paralysis. He swiftly threw her off and struck out with his hand towards where he though she was. He met with only air. He stretched his senses to the fullest, trying to sense where she was, but there was no indication of where she had been or where she was. He quickly retreated to the forest to hide and think. He had no idea how to fight someone that he had no idea where she was. _

_Then it happened. Her chakra signature blinked back into existence a few meters away, near a swift moving stream. He heard a splash; she must have ended the jutsu. He swiftly took out a kunai and jumped through the trees towards the stream. He emerged from the trees to find the one thing he did not expect. Kiri's sword was lying half in, half out of the stream in the mud of the riverbank and Kiri was nowhere in sight. Something was horribly wrong. Kiri would never have left her sword in the mud or water, she cherished the weapon like one of her closest friends. He scanned the area for her chakra signature and was horrified to find it flowing down the raging stream of cold water. He immediately took off, running beside the water and scanning the torrent for any sign of his fellow genin. He found her minutes later, almost a half a mile downstream, clinging to a rock on the edge of the stream. She was soaking wet and limp, her head barely held up, several bruises and cuts had appeared over the ones he had given her in sparring. He quickly and carefully removed her from the water, prying off the death grip she had on the rock. It was then that he noticed it. There was a piece of wood lodged in her stomach, piercing through the front of her shirt above her bellybutton and continuing on through her body to emerge from her back, narrowly missing her spine. Blood slowly staining her blue shirt a dark, ominous purple. She groggily raised her head and stared into his eyes, obviously barely conscious. _

"_Wh..Where is Enkou? Have you s-seen her? A-are you okay? I…" She trailed off weakly as she fell into the blackness of unconsciousness. Kakashi was in shock, his friend was lying in his arms, dying. He…He needed to get her to the hospital. Now. He carefully lifted her, making sure not to jostle the stick and ran for the village as fast as he could._

_After he had delivered her to the medics, he sat in the waiting room, shell shocked. All he could think was 'How? How could this happen? To Kiri of all people. She doesn't deserve it. She's always so happy and cheerful, making everyone smile. Why her?'_

_Then he though back to what she had said before she passed out. Who was Enkou? He didn't know of anyone in the village named that. Wait. Her sword, she must have dropped it. _

_He checked with the nurse at the front desk for news on Kiri's condition. The news was not good, she was half drowned and the stick was proving difficult to remove, splintering inside her. Luckily they had stabilized her for the most part and were carefully removing the splinters. She also had a severe case of chakra exhaustion, but she was expected to make a full recovery though it would take a while._

_Kakashi sagged with relief and thanked the receptionist quietly before heading back to the training grounds. If she cared enough about the sword to ask if it was okay when she was impaled and half drowned, she would probably want it back as soon as possible before it started to rust in the mud. _

_Two days later Kiri woke up. Kakashi, unfortunately, had to leave on a mission the day before and he spent the entire month long mission worrying about the sword wielding kunoichi. Luckily since it was only a C rank he didn't have too much trouble, even with his concentration wandering. _

_Unfortunately when he returned, his nightmares diminished to mere fairy tales in comparison to what had occurred while he was gone. The Third Hokage asked him to stay and talk after he and his team had given their mission reports. His stomach dropped to his toes at the sad look in the man's eyes. Something was horribly wrong. _

"_Kakashi, I know you are friends with Akiri and that you were the one who rescued her and brought her to the hospital, so I thought that it would be best for me to tell you first instead of from rumors or bits and pieces of the story. I'm not really sure how it happened, but a young medic nin student was put in charge of Kiri's care while she recovered. We are not sure exactly what he did to her, but she has not smiled, spoken, eaten, or left her room in the week since she was allowed to return home. She sees no one and won't let any of her other friends enter her apartment. We asked one of the Hyuuga to check up on her using their Byakugan and as far as he could tell, all she did was sit on the windowsill and tremble. Her window is always open, but whenever anyone approaches it, barrages of kunai and other weapons repel them. She won't even let Anko near enough to enter. I would like you to go over and try to talk to her. We have the student imprisoned in the ANBU base, but we have not been able to persuade him to tell us what he did, he seems almost smug about it. Please, go talk to her. We are all extremely worried about her." He sank into his seat as he spoke, sagging with weariness and worry. He was very fond of Kiri, she was always so bright and uplifting, even amusing when he needed a break from paperwork. She always seemed to know when he needed a break from the endless piles of paper and would concoct some of the most amusing pranks to play on one of his staff, right where he would see them. He couldn't imagine what could have happened to leave her like this._

_Kakashi felt as if ice were flowing through his veins. He immediately leapt out the open window and towards the apartment where his friend lived, sprinting with an energy he had not thought existed minutes before. He approached her door warily, remembering what the Hokage had said about her window and the kunai. He slowly walked up to it and knocked gently._

"_Kiri? Please let me in." He said softly. Silence followed, he didn't hear a single sound as he strained his hearing to sense the slightest shift of cloth or intake of air. Nothing. It was like the place was utterly empty of life. He was overcome with sadness and defeat. Even he couldn't help, what could have been so horrible to make sunny, happy Kiri to become so much like a corpse. He slowly turned the doorknob and found it unlocked. It squeaked open slowly to reveal Kiri's living room. Everything was clean, like someone had just move in and hadn't yet unpacked anything. the furniture, rugs, even the kitchen was neat. Where was the usual clutter? The trash, the random knives and shuriken lying around waiting to be stepped on? Then he looked to the window seat on the opposite side of the room._

_The glass was pushed open and the screen was no longer in place. Kiri lay on the cushioned seat, her head resting on the frame of the window, looking out on the forest beyond Konoha's wall. Her limbs were limp and pale, her clothes wrinkled, dirty, and torn in several places. There were dark circles under her eyes, which had lost all their light, now a dull, flat shade of navy. Something was clutched to her chest limply with one arm like a lifeline._

_He walked over to the haunted girl and carefully embraced her. At first she lay in his arms as if she really was a corpse. Then, slowly, she began to hug him back, burying her face in his shoulder, silent tears slowly coursing down her eyes and soaking his shirt. They simply stood there for nearly half an hour while Kiri finally let out her tears. When she was done, she gently pulled away and looked at him, her eyes red and puffy, but now a slight spark had returned to their blue depths. She turned back to the window seat and retrieved the object that she had been holding before. It was Enkou in its plain black sheath. The black leather-wrapped handle and dull black crosspiece showing while the sheath hid the blade that was four and a half hands in length and a matching dull black. The orange designs engraved in the crosspiece and pommel glowed softly in swirling patterns that led the eyes from one line to the next, never seeming to end or begin. She held the sword gently in both hands and carried it over to the spot under her bed where she always kept it, returning to him and standing in front of him, looking lost, but hopeful that he could help her find a way. He inwardly sighed with relief as she smiled at him._

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The memory was far from a pleasant one. It was one of the few times in his life that he had been truly and utterly scared. He couldn't imagine what had happened to her while he was on his mission; she had never been able to tell him nor anyone else as far as he knew. It had taken him and their entire genin class and their sensei two months to even get her to smile regularly again. She hadn't been back to her sunny, prankster self for just under a year. Now she was back in the place that had caused all that misery. It would probably be imperative that he get her out of here before she could give into her fear. She had held up for an amazingly long time, until the day she died, she wouldn't even walk the street that the hospital had its main entrance on. Medics had been forced to treat her either in her home or just where she fell on the rare occasions that she was hurt seriously enough to need medical attention. Luckily she had gotten over her fear of the medics rather quickly, even befriending one of the nurses who had cared for her. Two hours inside of a hospital was a major record. He decided that that was enough and stood up from his hard chair., his butt muscles protesting at the movement after being effectively flattened. He ignored them and approached his team (minus a certain medic).

"Kiri, Naruto, I know you want to wait for Sakura and that you are concerned for Kankuro-san, but sitting here is counterproductive. Why don't we go to the inn down the street and get our belongings settled, that way we can all hit the hay as soon as Sakura is done." He eye smiled at them and grinned under his mask at the thankful look in Kiri's eyes. Naruto set down his brainteaser puzzle (which was still in a jumbled mess) and stretched. Kiri nodded and stood up carefully, keeping her mouth closed, lips pursed tightly together and led the way quickly towards the entrance, gripping the chain hanging around her hip so hard that she left imprints of her fingers in the links. As they pushed out the doors into the cool night air, she visibly relaxed, sighing with relief and letting go of the strangled chain.

Kiri was eternally grateful once again to her silver haired friend. She suspected that had she stayed in that place a minute longer, she would have likely fainted. She chuckled at the thought, that would have been an interesting way to show the Suna nin that she was a strong capable kunoichi. Not. She decided not to dwell on it as she laid out her change of close for tomorrow and made sure that she had not forgotten anything when she was packing. She would be sharing her room with Sakura and Kakashi and Naruto were in the next room over. The two double beds were fluffy and comfortable. Kiri just hoped that they had enough comforters stocked in the closet so that she wouldn't have to ask for more. She knew that nights in the desert tended to be deathly cold.

She was getting better with her claustrophobia. Being inside now didn't even bother her and spending that long in the hospital proved that her constant self-imposed training was finally paying off. She had spent as much time as possible inside during that boring lay low month, forcing herself to get used to walls and ceilings again. Now where had she packed that scroll…

She found what she was looking for and brought the scroll over so she could sit on the bed and read. She had taken to jotting down random prank ideas as they popped into her mind so that she could remember them for later. She had already filled up two and was on her third. She grinned at the last idea she had written down the night before back in her apartment with Anko. She needed some cheering up, maybe she could get in a quick prank before they left to search for the Kazekage. It would help everyone relieve the tension that was building in every one of them to the point that you could sense it just by coming within a mile of them.

Then she thought about Naruto. That had been the Kyuubi's chakra that had been invading his chakra network on their journey.

_That was the Kyuubi, I'm sure of it. If that's just a sample of what happens when he loses control, I don't think I want to be around if anything serious happens. Even with Kurobi's help, it would be really hard to get him back under control. I need to deal with this now, before we go hunting the Akatsuki members who took Gaara-sama. If he loses control around them, they'll be more likely to capture him since he isn't thinking rationally._

She stood and stowed away the scroll in her pack, going to the door, quickly picking up the key, and walked briskly to the guy's room. She knocked on the door.

"Hey Naruto! If you're decent, can I come in? It's kinda important and my butt is tired of sitting still." A wet, drippy haired blond opened the door, dressed in a fresh black t-shirt and his orange pants.

"What is it?" He asked curiously. Kiri was so rarely serious that she looked kind of weird. He tried to contain his laughter, putting his hand over his mouth to try and hide his struggles.

"What? What's funny? Where" Kiri looked around, dropping her serious face.

"Nothing, nothing." Naruto said barely containing his mirth. "So what was it you came for?"

"Naruto, I need to talk to the Kyuubi." Kiri said. Naruto froze and stared at her, a little startled at the random statement and slightly confused.

"Ummm, Kiri? The Kyuubi's sealed inside of me, you can't really talk to it." Naruto said, his confusion making an appearance center stage.

"Its possible. Kakashi, could me and Naruto have some time alone to work on this?" Kiri asked the man standing behind his student in the doorway.

"This being what?" Kakashi asked, puzzled.

"Kyuubi forcibly taking control of Naruto's body when he's angry."

"Oh, okay. I'll see you two later. We're going to be leaving to search for Gaara-sama as soon as possible so get back to get some sleep. We don't know the next time we'll get some with you two being so energetic and your completely one track minds." Kakashi said, turning and walking back into the room with a wave.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kiri and Naruto yelled at the jounin, but he had already collected his pajamas and claimed the bathroom to shower.

Kiri turned back to Naruto and motioned for him to follow her outside. They left the inn and walked to the small park across the road. It was getting much darker, but the streetlights provided adequate lighting along with the fireflies flitting about. Kiri wanted to be well away from the chance of anyone seeing them in case things didn't go well. The stone pathway let windingly among trees and flower beds, ending in a clearing with some benches and a pond.

"Okay, this probably isn't going to be the most amusing or fun thing in the world so lets get it over with. Then we can start training tomorrow." Kiri perked up when she mentioned training.

"Do you want to tell me what in the world we are doing?" Naruto said, still oblivious to what they were doing. " What are we going to be doing and why are we training tomorrow? We have to go get Gaara!"

" I know that." Kiri said solemnly. " But if we're going to go after two members of an organization whose purpose is to capture Jinchuuriki tomorrow, it would probably be best if we get this done as soon as possible. It would be a really bad idea for you to have the Kyuubi take over while we're fighting them. Tonight I'm going to talk to the Kyuubi and figure out what in the world is making her go psycho, and then tomorrow you can spend a few hours training with me and working on your ability to fuse with her."

"Oh…..Wait, who's her?"

Kiri smacked her forehead with her palm.

"Kyuubi, Naruto. Jinchuuriki are able to utilize their demon's chakra and elemental manipulation by fusing with them. It is neither painful, nor harmful to your body. Or at least it shouldn't be. That's why I have to talk to her so we can figure out what the hell is going on with her taking over your body by force."

"Oh…Wait! What do you mean her? Kyuubi's a GIRL!!!"

Another palm to the forehead.

"Naruto, why don't we get started before my hand leaves a permanent mark on my forehead? And yes Kyuubi is female. I don't know where everyone got the idea that she's a guy." Kiri said, finally getting tired and feeling the effects of a mad dash across the desert. She slowly sat down and crossed her legs, her legs and butt complaining about all the sitting still she was doing. Usually she couldn't be still for more than a minute. She waved the blond over, inviting the him to sit facing her. He did so and copied her position, his hands on his knees.

" What do I have to do?" he asked.

" Nothing. Just focus inward on Kyuubi. Try to see if you can get into your mindscape and find the Fourth's seal that holds her back." Kiri said, closing her eyes. "I'll do the rest."

"Well, that's easy" Naruto said closing his eyes too.

Kiri focused inward on her own mindscape. It only took a moment's concentration until she found herself in a bright forest, standing on a well-traveled dirt path. It was warm and summer-like, the leaves still green on the trees and the sun just peeking over the horizon in the east. She followed the path deeper into the wood, traveling past the crossroads and intersections on the well known way to her destination. She had never really spent a whole ton of time actually exploring, so most of the roads led to unknown destinations, but during the year before she had returned to Konoha, she had spent most of her time training with Kurobi so she was sure of the way. She finally came to his clearing. It was large and had a few trees and flowers dotting it here and there, a pond at the opposite end which she knew was perfectly warm and crawling with minnows that she and her demon had spent hours chasing after training. Kurobi was lazing under one of the shadier trees, taking a nap, his gigantic white and black head resting on a root and his twelve tails splayed out behind him on the grass, twitching occasionally as he dreamed. She had allowed him the freedom to roam through her mindscape as he wished, since they had become good friends and she trusted him. The only outward sign that he was bound to her was the thin metal collar that circled his neck. It wasn't thick and looked more like a cord that wound around his neck in an endless circle, a line of different symbols traveling the circumference. She had no idea what they meant or did, but since she had no interest in sealing jutsu, she didn't really care and Kurobi hadn't taken the time to explain them so she trusted that they weren't especially important.

She smiled at the peaceful scene and walked quietly over to her large furry friend's head.

"Kuro, hey wake up! Its time to go talk to the Kyuubi and I can't do it by myself." Kurobi blinked open one blue eye which was surprisingly identical to hers before yawning and closing it again.

"**Five more minutes.**" he mumbled

"Nope, I'm exhausted and I really want to get to sleep before the sun rises. Can we get this over with, please? Plus I'm not exactly going to enjoy myself if she recognizes me. Would you get your furry butt up!" She emphasized her last sentence by bending down and trying to lift his enormous weight with her arms around his middle. Even in her mindscape he was big, probably almost seven feet tall at the shoulder

"**Heh heh heh. Okay, I'm up. No need to pick me up like a rag doll. It's not exactly dignified for a demon to get thrown around by a mortal. Alright, now what's this about?**" He slowly got to his feet as Kiri removed her arms, his eyes opening half way and flicking to the girl. He admired her and liked her a great deal, kind of like a little sister, but why did she always seem to need him or someone to talk to just when he was having a nice nap? He shook his head, deciding that the gods intended him to be an insomniac, and finally paid attention to what his container was saying.

".. So how are we going to solve the problem of her recognizing me? If she does she'll probably be more uncooperative or try to kill me or something, but I have to go along since you're bound to me." Kiri finished a long rambling explanation of what had happened, unaware of the inattention of her audience.

_**Good thing I actually caught the important part, otherwise she might have gotten mad. **_mental shiver_**. Last time that happened it was thunder and lightning and tornadoes in here for a week. I hate getting wet.**_

"**Well there is an easy solution, use your other form. You didn't have that then did you?**" The demon supplied.

"Oh yeah, that's right! Why in the world didn't I think of that! Geeze, good thing you're here or I'd forget my own left hand." She exclaimed, a light bulb appearing and lighting up over her head before disappearing with a weird pop. She quickly make a tiger hand seal and poofed into her tiger form.

She hadn't used her tiger form since she had returned to Konoha, and for a mostly good reason. Nobody really felt comfortable talking to a five foot nine inch tiger. She knew her new and old friends were accepting, but saying, "Hi guys. Oh don't worry, it's still me. I just gained the ability to turn into a giant, talking black tiger with silver stripes when I became a Jinchuuriki. Do you want to go make some smores?" was probably not the smartest thing to do if you wanted to avoid screaming and hysteria and long explanations. Before she had rejoined civilization she had spent a lot of time in her tiger form and she frequently missed having overly large teeth and claws to protect herself with. Humans just didn't have any natural weapons at all and it was so cold without fur.

She quickly adjusted back to having four legs and head butted Kurobi in the shoulder, knocking him onto his side.

"That's for not paying attention. Come on, Naruto's probably waiting for us and getting harassed by an angry fox." She said as the demon regained his feet with a huff.

_**Doesn't anyone have any respect for demons anymore?**_ Kurobi thought, rolling his eyes.

"**Alright, I'm going. Follow close, if you get lost in between I am not going to wait for you**." He grumbled before walking over to her. She humphed and lay down. Kurobi carefully placed his paws and stood over her so her head was between his front paws. They had not done this often, going into the mind of another creature. Kiri still found the process slightly disturbing, but calmly rested her head on her paws and closed her eyes to concentrate. Kurobi dropped his head to rest his chin on top of her head and they both disappeared with a whoosh as the air rushed to fill in the empty space where they had once been.

_(Naruto's Mindscape)_

Naruto once again found himself in his mindscape. It wasn't exactly a pleasant place, it resembled a flooded sewer and the light was always dim, making things hard to see. He had become accustomed to finding the Kyuubi's cage while he was training with Jiraya, he frequently needed some of its chakra when he over used his own during training. He walked calmly down the dripping hallways, feet splashing on top of the stream of water flowing down the middle of it. He didn't really enjoy talking to the short tempered fox, it frequently ended in him having to dodge large claws made of red chakra that reached through the bars of the cage. He sighed and made his way among the halls towards the demon. If Kiri could help him to use its power without hurting himself, then he would put up with the fox's abrasive personality. If it meant that he could protect Sakura, Kiri, Kakashi, and his other friends better and it gave him a better chance of finding Sasuke, then he would do anything.

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**Grrr, this one took longer than I thought. I went through two different versions before I wrote this one. Oh, well. It will definitely get better/happier/not so depressing after this. As always, pwease review. It always makes me happy to see that people are actually reading this. :3 **

**See ya before it snows, -X-Amira-X- :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hola! I be back. **

"talking"

_thoughts_

**"Kyuubi, Kurobi, demonic Kiri talking"**

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**Chapter 6**

Kiri opened her eyes on to a wet, dripping sewer.

_THIS is Naruto's mind scape! I'm surprised he's not suicidal. This place is completely and utterly depressing! Oops._

Kiri jumped to her feet and banged her head on the low ceiling which made a metallic thunk. She shook her head to try and clear away the pretty lights flying in front of her eyes and looked around to find her demon friend. What she saw was quite humorous. The sewer hallway type area was only a little over six feet tall and her seven food furry mentor was a little bit, well, squished. He was crouching in front of her so that only his head brushed the ceiling and trying to keep as much of him out of the two inch stream of water slowly flowing down the hall at the same time, which resulted in a position that looked like he was trying to tiptoe.

"Kurobi, its only water. Not that I usually like water, but seriously, it's not even deep enough to blow bubbles in. Come on, it's not that bad. Let's find Naruto." She said giggling. She tried to turn around in the narrow hallway and came to an unfortunate conclusion. It was too narrow for her to turn around. She rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Okay, I guess I'll have to go butt first." She sighed. Kurobi started chuckling at the image of her friend running down the wet halls only to encounter a huge tiger butt.

"Hey, what's so funny?" She asked confused. Kurobi stifled his laughter and shook his head. He hoped they would meet up with the fox kid. Who said demons had no sense of humor.

Kiri shrugged and started backing down the long hall, ignoring any of the side passages branching out from the main hall, they were even smaller and she had no intention of getting stuck in a hallway in someone else's mindscape. That would be embarrassing if Naruto found her and had to pull her out. The light was quite dim and seemed to be emanating from the floor, making it ripple and dance in a weird, disconcerting way. Luckily the main hall didn't turn much so she only hit her butt occasionally on the walls. Kurobi followed her, luckily for him, facing forward and listened for any sign that they were closer to Naruto.

"Wait, down that way. " He said, indicating a slightly larger passage on the left. "I can hear him. He's just a little ways down." Kiri nodded and backed past the opening so she could walk through head first. Kurobi started to follow, but decided against it. Instead he closed his eyes and returned to Kiri's mindscape where he could watch the show from her perspective. He would wait to confront the Kyuubi until the right moment. He was her superior in raw power as the most powerful bijuu, but the two tended to get into loud violent arguments occasionally. It was all fun and games, but having two demons play fighting in one's mindscape probably wouldn't be comfortable.

Kiri looked around and found herself in a large chamber. It was big enough that she could move around comfortably and the ceiling was considerably higher. There was still the constant trickle of water and glowing floor, though it seemed slightly brighter. The far wall, though, was taken up for the most part by large cage doors, held shut by a small, complex looking seal.

Naruto stood off to the side, carefully giving the cage a healthy distance, leaning on the right wall. When Kiri entered, he was completely taken off guard and jumped before eyeing the giant tiger carefully. He knew that Akiri's demon was the twelve tailed tiger, but what was a one tailed tiger doing here? He had never seen a tiger that was black with silver stripes either, but for some reason it looked familiar. How a giant tiger could look familiar was beyond him, but then it turned and he saw its eyes. They were the same electric blue that Kiri's were. Then it started talking and there was no doubt left in his mind that it was somehow Kiri.

"Naruto? What's with your mindscape? Are you depressed? Kurobi had to practically crawl through the hallways! It was hilarious. Plus he was practically tip-toeing through the water. I'm soooo glad this room is bigger, I couldn't turn around I had to walk backwards down the hallways! I'm glad you got here before us or you might have run smack into my butt, I didn't have a clue where I was going. Where's Kyuubi? Is she supposed to be behind those doors?" she said in one long breath. Naruto grinned at the stream of inquiries. And she said he asked a lot of questions, ha.

"Yeah, she's in there, but I don't know why she's not coming. Usually by now she's made an appearance." He replied.

Kiri puzzled over it, but her answer appeared before she could figure it out. The Kyuubi no Kitsune stood before the bars of her cage. Her fur was a blood red and her ears and the nine tails that fanned out behind her were all tipped in black. She was only as tall as Kiri, though she seemed smaller because she was lither than Kiri's solid, muscled form. Kyuubi was obviously built more for speed than strength, as all foxes were. Her red eyes glared out at the one (currently) human in the chamber, Naruto.

"**What do you want **_**boy?" **_Her voice was low and growling asshe spat out the last word like it was poison. **"Make it quick, before I lose the entire miniscule amount of patience I have for you. I swear on my grave that I will find a way out of here and when I do, hehehe, the first thing I shall do is to kill you and then the rest of that disgusting village you call Konoha! "**

Kiri finally had enough of the fox's threats and walked up to the bars, growling under her breath and killing intent pouring off her body like heat waves. No one was allowed to threaten her friends like that.

"**Fox, you go too far. Explain yourself immediately. There is no reason to treat your container like this. If I am not satisfied with your reasons or your apology, you can be sure I will rip you limb from limb for talking like that to my teammate." **Kiri growled her voice as demonic as the Kyuubi's. Her tail flicked back and forth and was suddenly joined by a second as her chakra spiked.

The Kyuubi seemed shocked when she looked to the nearly six foot tiger outside her prison, but her snarl remained and she looked not the least bit apologetic.

"**Who are you and how dare you order me to do anything. I am the nine tailed fox, cat, and who and why I threaten is my own business. What do you want?" **she snarled threateningly. Naruto backed away a few feet. The fox demon's red chakra was starting to creep towards the bars of the cage. Kiri growled and bared her teeth at the fox. Then she paused for a moment and did a complete mood change. She relaxed and stopped growling.

"**My name is Gintora Akiri. I am the Jinchuuriki of Kurobi the Juunibi no Tora." ** She shrank and blurred until she was in her one tailed human form as she spoke. When the change was over, she stood in front of the demon, hands still in the tiger seal and still looking deathly serious. **"And I want to know what the hell is going on here."**

"_**YOU!" **_ The fox growled, **"Why have you rejoined the living, cousin of a murderer and associate of murderers. I thought I dealt with you and sent you to hell where you belonged."**

"**You speak of murders and murderers, yet I haven't a clue what you are talking about. If you explain, I shall be happy to **do the same." Kiri replied releasing her hold on her demon's chakra, her killing intent and the purple chakra cloak receding into her body. She walked up to the bars of the cage and held out her hand as if to shake the demon's hand. Kyuubi glared at the hand, but decided there was no harm in it. Kurobi's container seemed to be genuine in her lack of knowledge and so far neither she nor the boy had made any indications that they knew what had happened. Now that she thought about it, the blonde one hadn't given any indication of knowing since she had been sealed inside of him. She nodded and decided, shrinking and blurring.

Naruto was in awe as the Kyuubi's body seemed to melt into the form of a human woman. She was almost exactly Kiri's height with blood red hair which was in a loose ponytail that reached down to her lower back (picture Neji's if you poured red paint on his head :) ) and matching colored eyes. She wore a standard issue black jounin outfit with a maroon flak jacket and black, square-toed boots that ended just below her knees. She wore no headband and her right hand was wrapped in bandages. She walked the few feet between her and Kiri's outstretched hand confidently until she was standing right in front of the black haired Jinchuuriki. She stuck out her hand to shake Kiri's, but something flashed from where her hand had tried to reach through the bars and her hand was yanked back suddenly, like she had been burned.

Kyuubi glared at the bars separating her from the others. Something was keeping her from reaching through the bars and whatever it was, it hurt. Her fingers still tingled unpleasantly from the shock the barrier had given her. It was nothing compared to other pain she had endured, but it was still unpleasant. This was _extremely_ vexing, she had been locked in this wet, depressing dump of a mindscape for fifteen years and she couldn't even reach her hands beyond the bars of her cage. She growled with frustration.

Kiri jumped at the sudden flash. Geezes, the Fourth hadn't been messing around when he had sealed the fox away. He had sealed away the Kyuubi's soul so completely that she couldn't put a toe outside her little area of the boy's mind.

_Kurobi, _she though in a singsong voice, _would you like to come out and play now? We have a sealing issue and Kyuubi seems to have calmed down enough to tell us what's going on. Maybe we can change Naruto's mindscape to something more pleasant while we're at it._

"_**Okay, I guess. Why must you always interrupt my naps, I was just drifting off…"**_

"_JUUNIBI NO TORA, GET YOUR ASS UP AND OUT HERE! THIS IS NO TIME FOR SLEEPING! HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO SLEEP SO MUCH? ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT RELATED TO A SLOTH?" _Kiri's voice boomed inside her own head. Kurobi snorted and poofed out of her mindscape.

Naruto jumped back as a seven foot tall white tiger appeared in the chamber, twelve tails splayed out behind him. Geeze, how many people could fit in his mind anyway? A giant fox, him, a giant tiger, Kiri… It was starting to get a little crowded.

"**And no, there is no possible way I am related to a sloth. Sloths live in trees and eat leaves. I live in your head and eat little annoying kunoichi for breakfast. See? Big difference." **Kurobi said. Matching sweat drops appeared on Naruto and Kyuubi's head.

"Why don't we continue this conversation after we fix things up here?" Kiri replied. "I want to sleeeeep."

Kurobi grinned and started to examine the Kyuubi's seal. He hemmed and hawed for a minute before shaking his head.

"**Either the Yondaime was paranoid or you really had him scared that you would take over the kid's head, Kyuubi. The seal is extremely specific in its parameters." **He informed the red haired woman.

"**I don't care what it does, could you just fix it so I can have a decent conversation with these people?" **Kyuubi snapped. Kiri hid a giggle behind her hand. It was funny seeing this 'evil demon' being so impatient. Sure she had an attention span of about half a minute, but you would think an immortal, giant fox would learn some patience in the however many thousands of years she had been alive.

Kurobi smirked and sent a small amount of chakra (for him) into the seal and Kiri and Naruto watched while the small black symbols surrounding the seal squirmed and slithered into new shapes that now resembled flames. The tiger demon nodded in satisfaction and then backed away from the cage and turned to the blond ninja.

"**Hey blondie, want to change this place up a bit? It's kind of depressing and small. Unless you actually enjoy having a mind full of sewers?" **Naruto didn't even need a minute to think it over.

"Yeah! Cool! Um, how do we do that?"

"**You just picture it as being different. Pick anything you want."**

Naruto thought for a moment, and then grinned mischievously. The sewer around them blurred and froze for a second before settling into a different scene.

Kiri and Naruto's jaws dropped. They were standing in the corner of a large, white, carpeted banquet hall with a large, low, heavy wooden table spanning the length of the room. On that table were (magical fanfare) dozens of bowls of ramen.

Kiri squealed in delight and ran towards the food with open arms like she wanted to hug it. She stopped just before she ran into the table and looked around for chopsticks. Finding none, she simply yelled "Itadakimasu!" and made a pair of metal chopsticks out of one of the links in her chains and started eating like she had been starved for half her life. Naruto had followed closely behind her but, not having incredible abilities to make chopsticks in less than a second, nearly started crying and looked pleadingly at the girl on the opposite side of the table. Kiri looked up long enough from her sixth bowl to notice her teammate's predicament.

"Oh, Kami! Sorry Naruto! Here! This is the most awesome mindscape ever!" she said and quickly produced a pair of chopsticks for him before again digging into the ramen. Naruto smiled in pure bliss and followed his friend's example. Kurobi and Kyuubi just stood and stared at their strange containers who were eating like starving wolves. Kurobi started chuckling at the amusing scene while Kyuubi simply raised an eyebrow.

"**Do they always act like this? She was so serious just a minute ago. Now… Are we bound to mentally retarded mortals?" **She asked incredulous. Kurobi started laughing outright.

"**Yup, they're usually like this. No they're probably not deranged, but sometimes I wonder. Kiri is not exactly the most mature person and it seems like Naruto is almost exactly the same. Sometimes they're so alike it's scary, like they're related or something."**

"**Are they?"**

"**Not so far as I know. Most of the Gintora clan was killed in the Shinobi War and Kiri was the last one alive when you attacked." **He lay down, more gracefully than you'd expect someone his size to, and crossed one of his paws over the other, laying his head on top of them in order to keep watching their silly containers.

"**No, she wasn't." **Kyuubi said with an undertone of both sadness and suppressed anger. **"There was one more. But they had absolutely nothing in common."**

Kurobi was shocked. He had thought that Kiri had told him everything about what had happened before they'd been joined. He knew she trusted him to the moon and back and he reciprocated that. What could have been so secret that she had kept it from even him? He thought back over all the memories she had shown him, trying to figure out what he could have missed. Then he shook his head and forcibly repressed his train of thought. If Kiri had not shown him herself, then there was most likely a very good reason why. She was usually sensible like that. He would wait until she was ready to tell him herself.

Kiri was in ramen heaven, ignoring the depressing aura coming from the corner of the room. If they wanted to be all sad and miserable, that was their choice. She was certainly going to keep having fun. She polished off her seventeenth bowl and lay down on the floor with a contented sigh. She was finally full. Naruto wasn't far behind as he finished his twentieth and joined her with a thud as he flopped ungracefully on his back.

"Ahhhh. That was good!" Naruto exclaimed." Now, what were we supposed to be doing?"

"Oh yeah! Kyuubi!" She yelled across the room. "Front and center! It's story time! Naruto, could you make some chairs or something?"

"Sure!" Naruto said enthusiastically. Now that he knew how to do this it was getting to be pretty fun. The room melted around them and they found themselves in a small apartment that looked suspiciously like his. Various clues included the orange walls, the orange sheets, the fox plushie sitting on his pillow and the huge number of scrolls and ninja equipment stashed in a corner on a small set of wire shelves. There were also some black and white bean bags sitting in the middle of the room, circled around a low table set with bowls of, you guessed it, more ramen, and also some dango for Kiri.

"Yay! There's dango too!" Kiri said happily and collapsed into one of the black poofy bean bags. Naruto sat next to her in a white fuzzy one and Kyuubi took one opposite them.

Kurobi, who could have changed to his human form, decided against it. He wasn't really comfortable with human form, it had been a while since he had used it and he didn't want his fellow demon to see him tripping all over the place over his two legs. So he simple shrank down to the size of a house cat and lay down on Kiri's lap. Kiri petted his head absently while carefully eating a stick of dango. It wasn't ramen, but it was still her second favorite food and she wanted to savor it. It was very good.

"**So are you going to start or am I?" **Kyuubi asked, wondering how such a skinny girl could eat so much.

"Why don't you so we can go in chronological order." Kiri replied between mouthfuls.

_And so I can finish this dango. Either Naruto is an amazing cook or he really knows what good ramen and dango taste like. MMMmmmmmm._

Kyuubi hesitated a second before beginning.

"**About a day before I attacked Konoha, I was out hunting. I hadn't been able to find anything suitable, so I returned to my cave early. What I found when I got back will haunt me until the end of the world. My…my kits. They, someone had killed them. All three of them." ** A single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at her knees folded under her. **"I exploded. I was so… enraged." **She was shaking with the remembered emotions. **"I just exploded. Literally. After that, all I could think of was finding who did it so I could kill them in the longest, most painful way possible. So I examined every inch of it, every blood spattered inch. All I could find was a single scent trail of two humans mixed with snake. I tracked it for days. It wound around forever, in circles, over a mountain, and ten times through rivers and streams. Eventually though, it led to a place you all know well the front gate of Konohagakure. Sitting right in front of it, was… It was my little Akaaka's paw. She was my youngest kit, and without a doubt the strongest and happiest of the three. I couldn't help myself. I knew where her killer was and as far as I knew, everyone in the village was aware of what they had done and were protecting them. The rest of it is as you saw it, or learned of it in Naruto's case and I was sealed inside a baby by the Yondaime Hokage." **Kiri and Naruto had stopped eating and watched one of the most powerful demons in the world shaking like a leaf as she revealed the horror of what they had not known.

Kurobi's eyes widened when he heard about her kits. Among demons, offspring were rare. The foremost reason being that no other animal of their species was as powerful as they were. Even among the tigers, the most powerful of those gifted with demon powers had only five or six tails. Kyuubi's mate had been an unusually powerful four tailed fox. Plus, the fact that they had had _three_ kits, and then to have all of them killed, brutally, it was horrific. Kiri was shell shocked. Kurobi had told her about how precious cubs were to demons. Naruto was just plain shocked. Then all at once, Kiri and Naruto both came to the same conclusion.

"Orochimaru." Both of them growled. The two demons looked at them. Kiri took the lead.

"The only one who used snake summons regularly in the village of Konoha and still does is Orochimaru, the Sanin and now missing ninja and scorn of Konoha. It has to be." Her teeth were getting longer and purple chakra was leaking from her body. "He was also the one who stole my body from its grave and used it for his experiments. The result, I guess, is me standing here, alive. I suppose someone else might be thankful, but not me. If it had been anyone else, I might have. But to have been brought to life by that snake pedophile, nothing disgusts me. I feel lucky every day that he was not the one to find me that day at the lab." She looked to the fox demon across the table. "We **will** go after that traitorous bastard. We **will** bring back Uchiha Sasuke, and they **will** pay for what they did. I'll gladly leave you to handle Orochimaru, but on one condition. Yakushi Kabuto is mine. He was and is Orochimaru's right hand man and is most likely the person involved. I want to kill him myself." Her offer left no room for argument on the point of her target. The rest of them nodded, curious, but they respected her reasons and didn't pry.

Kiri nodded and calmed down, her teeth and chakra returning to normal. Then she flopped back on the bean bag and gave an enormous yawn.

"Well, now that that's settled, can we all go to sleep? Naruto and Kyuubi, tomorrow we're going to work on merging and then we have to go and find these idiot Akatsuki. We need sleep."

"**I know how the merging works, human. The only reason I did not do so is because I refused to share a mind in any way with a person who I thought was aware of my kit's murders and didn't care. I will be able to instruct the kit tomorrow morning. Go ahead and sleep in. We will not need assistance."** She said, rising from her bean bag and walking into the next room to the bed. **"You are right mortal, it is time to sleep. So skedaddle."** She pulled down the sheet and climbed on top, then poofed into a red silk nightgown with a black cartoon fox on the front that was sleeping on a blue pillow with cute blue Z's rising from its mouth.

Kiri, Naruto and Kurobi all stood and exited Naruto's mindscape. Kiri and Naruto opened their eyes to a still dark (thankfully) park. Kiri groaned and flopped out of her sitting position. Meditation always ended with a sore back and cramped legs. Being immobile for too long was definitely bad for her. She looked up at the sky and tried to judge what time it was. She had no luck, so she merely stood and looked to her friend. Apparently he was even more tired in her. He hadn't even been back in the real world for a second before he just lay down and started snoring. Kiri smirked and pressed the record button on a tape recorder. She was going to get revenge for having to carry him back to the inn. He had fallen asleep once before at training and there was no possible way to wake the kid up. He slept like a rock. A very dead rock. She groaned as she easily tossed him over her shoulder. This was going to be awkward to explain to Kakashi, at least the reason why she was carrying a passed out Naruto over her shoulder. He would probably scold her for tiring out her teammate on the night before they had an important mission and he was probably right. Oh well, she still got the tape of Naruto's snoring. It sounded like the kid was trying to mumble and whistle at the same time. She walked slowly back across the street and back up to their rooms at the hotel. No one was still up, thankfully, and she was able to drop a still sleeping knuckle-headed ninja into his bed (Kakashi had left the door unlocked since he hadn't given Naruto a key), before collapsing into her own in the girl's room next door. She briefly noticed that Sakura had finally finished with Kankuro and was asleep on her own bed. That was a good sign, if anything had gone wrong with his treatment, she wouldn't have come here to sleep. So Kankuro had made it. That was good. Then she quickly drifted off to sleep.

_________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning decided to announce itself way too early in Kiri's opinion. The way it decided to announce itself was even more annoying. She was sleeping peacefully and having a nice dream about fluffy sheep that were somehow purple and made of cotton candy running away from her as she tried to catch them. Then, someone rudely (and stupidly) tried to wake her up and make her return to reality. She did not want to go. Last night had been freezing and she had piled at least four comforters on top of herself. Plus, she was enjoying the purple, edible sheep. The annoying voice was calling her quite loudly now, so she rolled over and pulled her pillow over her head. Aahhhh, peaceful silence.

Kiri's pillow was yanked away and someone flung off her covers. That was the last straw; whoever was ruining her wonderful sleeping time was going to _**die.**_ She sprung up and summoned a short katana to her hand as she slammed the perpetrator against the wall with the sharp blade to their throat and several kunai floating in mid air in front of several of their vitalorgans. She opened her eyes to glare the person to death and then realized that it wasn't who she thought it was. Kakashi stood wide-eyed against the wall which now had a similar shaped depression in it.

"Umm, Kiri, it's almost noon and the Suna elder who is going to accompany us is ready to go. We're leaving in half an hour. Is this going to be happening every time we try to wake you up?"

Kiri immediately let her teammate go and stepped back, giving an embarrassed laugh.

"You should see my alarm clock. I'll try to restrain myself. You might want to wake me up with a ten foot pole next time though. I don't like waking up. How long do we have?"

"About half an hour, you're the last one up. Sakura and I were up at eight this morning and Naruto was up at nine. What did you tell that boy to do? He was just standing in the middle of the training area for an hour and then his chakra exploded. Maybe you should go check on him."

Kiri nodded. Hopefully nothing too bad had happened. She finally put away her katana and the kunai before shooing Kakashi out of the room so she could take a quick shower.

She emerged ten minutes later from a steamy bathroom with a white fuzzy towel on her head. She had changed into her gear already and walked to the window on the other side of the beds. It was quite hot here; she realized and was a very pleasant change from Konoha's weather. It was nearly a hundred degrees out in the sun and there wasn't a bit of humidity in the air, true desert weather. Kiri loved it, except at night. She hadn't been to Suna before and the nights were as unpleasant for her as the days were joyous. Thank Kami there had been lots of extra blankets kept in the closet. She finished getting ready and packed up her things. As far as she knew, they might not be coming back to this exact inn when the mission was over, so she would have to bring her stuff with her. Luckily, she had brought a sealing scroll and stored most of her stuff like her sleeping bag and clothes in that. She kept out only her weapons and the food she had packed. That done, she could finally go check on Naruto.

She grabbed her gear and took the window exit to the street in front of the inn. Looking around, she realized that she had no idea where the training area was. She sighed in annoyance, but quickly recovered her normal cheer and smiled. Now since she had the excuse, she could explore the village. She hadn't been awake enough to see further than two inches in front of her feet the night before. She turned and sped down the street at top speed, just running for the fun of it. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to see around the street corner and as she turned to the left she ran straight into the boy she was looking for, though the circumstances were rather unexpected. They rolled about and ended up in the middle of the street twenty feet behind where Naruto had been standing with Kiri laying face down in the dirt and Naruto sprawled on top of her.

"Naruto, this. Is. Kind of. Uncomfortable. Could you please. Get your. Ass. Off my. Back." She said, sounding very flattened and winded. This had not gone as planned. She was supposed to find _him_ first, and then tackle _him_, and then land on top of _him. _Whyyyyy?

Naruto groaned and rolled off her. Damn that hurt. He was going to have a lump on his head.

"Oh, yay! I found you! Kakashi was worried about something earlier. How did training go? Was Kyuubi a fart face again or was she actually being civil? How far did you get? Do you know who the person is that is traveling with us? Kakashi said she was an elder, why are we taking an old lady? Especially on a mission where we're going to be running after S-class criminals who want to kill us? Did you see where my pack went?" Wow, she was even able to ask questions when she was face down in the dirt after he landed on her. Either some very stupid person had given her sugar or she healed as fast as he did since he had definitely felt one of her ribs crack. It was probably the latter, or a combination of the two. He gave her a hand up and dusted himself off as she did the same. Luckily the street was only occupied by themselves and a few other people so they didn't have to endure too many stares.

"Ummm, I think it's up there." He said pointing to a bag hanging to one of the small shop's roof corner.

"Oh wonderful! It didn't end up in a trash can this time!" she said optimistically. She backed up a few steps before running headlong at the shop's front bar. It was a small sweets shop luckily so she didn't step on any poor customer's food as she jumped onto the counter and then ran straight up the wall to snatch her bag before gracefully flipping and landing on the ground two floors below in a crouch.

"And that was without even a single drop of chakra!" She grinned before politely apologizing to the amused girl at the counter. (AN: Yes, I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 while writing that :) "So, you gonna spill or am I going to have to tickle it out of you." She chuckled at her friend's raised eyebrow.

"No its okay, not necessary." Naruto said worriedly taking a step back. Kiri grinned happily; either option was fine with her. "My training went fine; the Kyuubi has actually been pretty nice since last night's ramen party. She explained the theory of what I had to do to begin merging with her and then I spent a while on actually doing it. It took a while, but I actually was able to merge up to one full tail! It was soooo cool and it didn't even hurt at all. Kyuubi nearly peed her pants when I got it down after only an hour or so! Ha-ha, it was hilarious. What was the other thing you wanted to know?"

"The old lady that we're supposed to be taking on our search and rescue mission? Oops, we'd better get going, we only have ten minutes until we're leaving." Kiri started walking towards the village gate. It was quite a few blocks away so they had better start walking. It was too soon after she got up to start running all over the place. Then again, maybe not. Running would be fun. She gestured at Naruto for him to follow and started running down the middle of the street at full speed, leaving a trail of dust behind her whooping in elation. Naruto followed close behind her despite the fact that he thought it was way too hot to be running at all. It was better to stay with Kiri and be a little tired than to lose her and have to look all over for her. It would delay the mission and plus, the girl had never been here before and would undoubtedly get sidetracked by a shiny object or a candy shop or something.

Kiri was enjoying herself, her last question forgotten as she wound her way around the shops and people crowding the streets. So much so in fact, that she began flipping and cartwheeling just for the fun of it. The warm sun was glorious and they were on their way to rescue the Kazekage from a bunch of homicidal maniacs, life was wonderful. Except for maybe the homicidal part. Maniacs she could deal with, she could probably be classified as one herself depending on who you asked. Thinking along these happy lines, she came to the next car in her train of thought, pranks. She had been too tired to do one yesterday, so today was prime time. She slowed slightly so Naruto could fall in alongside her and reached into her pocket.

"Naruto, I need to give you something! She yelled over the dull roar of the civilians in the marketplace they were passing through. Naruto quirked his head to the side, slightly wary, but put out his hand anyway. Kiri reached out and placed an apple sized, smooth, round ball of copper in his hand. Naruto looked at her quizzically and she motioned that he should put it in his pocket and he carefully slipped it into his kunai holster. They finally got free of the crowded market street and ran the last three blocks to the outer wall. Naruto started to head towards the huge main gate, but Kiri had other ideas. She grabbed him by the arm and jumped as high as she could before pulling off one of her chains and forming it into her circular platform beneath their feet. Naruto was whooping with exhilaration as they rode the saucer through loop-de-loops and flips and whirls over the wall to the spot right outside the gate where the rest of their team and another dot were waiting. Naruto loved the feeling of flying; it was like being totally free of every worry or care as well as gravity. He kept a firm hold on Kiri's other chain though; he did _not_ want to fall off the piece of metal. A drop from this height would be fatal to even the most skilled of ninja. As they spiraled down to meet the ninja dots below them, they both gazed in awe at the view of the desert before them. The dunes of yellow sand stretched out for miles upon miles to meet the western horizon. A small line of green was visible on the eastern horizon where the trees started and the dunes ended. It was so open that they marveled at the size of the blue sky stretching above them, completely cloudless.

_We're coming Gaara, and you better be alright when we get there.  
_

**Hooray! I finally finished. This one was hard to write, I don't know why. The next one will be posted very soon, I got it all planned out. **

**Happy Halloween! :D**

**I really like my Halloween costume this year, I am your death :P It was funny when everyone was freaked out that the quiet blond girl came in with overdone eyeliner, black lipstick, black hair and the Chinese character for death on her forehead. Lol, the Chinese was a joke, it's the language they're forcing us to "learn". ENJOY ALL THE CANDY!! I KNOW I WILL! **

**See ya soon, **

**-X-Amira-X-**


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